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OUUU4#«^OT 





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BUDDHA: 

HIS LIFE, HIS DOCTRINE, HIS OEDEB, 

m. HERMANN OLBENBEEG, 

THB DNITBRBITT OF BESLIN, EDIIOE OF TEE VIH: 
AND THB sIpAT&HSA I^ PALI. 

Cranslateii fr0m tbt German; 



WILLIAM HOET, M.A., D.LlT., 



I UAJEStr'a BBNOAL CIVIL BBBTtOE. 




WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, >So^^^ 

H, HENRIETTA STREET. COVENT GARDEN, LONDON; 
AND ao, SOUTH rBEDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH. 




LONDON : 

a, NOBMAN AND SOX, FKINTKR8, HABT 8TBEET, 

COVEMT GABDEX. 



TEANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



This book is a translation of a German -work, ByddUa, 8ein 
Leben, seine Lehre, seine Oemeinde^ by Professor Hermann 
Oldenberg, of Berlin, editor of the *^P&li Texts of the 
Vinaya Pitakam and the Dipavamsa/' The original has 
attracted the attention of European scholars, and the name 
of Dr. Oldenberg is a sufficient guarantee of the value of 
its contents. A review of the original doctrines of Buddhism, 
coming from the pen of the eminent German scholar, the 
coadjutor of Mr. Rhys Davids in the translation of the P&li 
scriptures for Professor Max Miiller^s ^^ Sacred Books of the 
East/^ and the editor of many Pdli texts, must be welcome as 
an addition to the aids which we possess to the study of 
Buddhism. Dr. Oldenberg has in the work now translated 
successfully demolished the sceptical theory of a solar Buddha, 
put forward by M. Senart. He has sifted the legendary 
elements of Buddhist tradition, and has given the reliable 
residuum of facts concerning Buddha's life : he has examined 
the original teaching of Buddha, shown that the cardinal 
tenets of the pessimism which he preached are ^^the truth 
of suffering and the truth of the deliverance from suffering :*' 
he has expounded the ontology of Buddhism and placed the 
Kirvuna in a true Ught. To do this he has gone to the roots 
of Buddhism in pre-Buddhist Brahmanism : and he has given 
Orientalists the original authorities for his views of Buddhist 
dogmatics in Excursus at the end of his work. 

To thoughtful men who evince an interest in the comparative 



iv TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

study of religious beliefs. Buddhism, as the highest effort of 
pure intellect to solve the problem of being, is attractive. It 
is not less so to the metaphysician and sociologist who study 
the philosophy of the modem German pessimistic school and 
observe its social tendencies. To them Dr. Oldenberg^s work 
will be as valuable as it is to the Orientalist. 

My aim in this translation has been to reproduce the thought 
of the original in clear English. K I have done this, I have 
succeeded. Dr. Oldenberg has kindly perused my manuscript 
before going to press : and in a few passages of the English 
I have made slight alterations, additions, or omissions, as 
compared with the German original, at his request.* 

I have to thank Dr. Eost, the Librarian of the India Office, 

at whose suggestion I undertook this work, for his kindness 

and courtesy in facilitating some references which I found it 

necessary to make to the India Office Library. 

W. HOEY. 
Belfast, October 21, 1882. 

* At p. 241-2, Dr. Oldenberg refers to the impossibility of Buddhist 
terminology finding adequate expression in the German language. I may 
make a similar complaint of the English tongue, and point in proof to 
the same word which occasioned his remark : Sankhara. This term is 
translated in the German by " Gestaltungen," which would be usually 
rendered in English by " shapes *' or " forms :'* but ^the " shape " or 
" form," and the " shaping " or " forming," are one to Buddhist thought : 
hence I have used for " sankhara " an English word which may connote 
both result and process, and is at the same time etymologically similar 
to, though not quite parallel to, " sankhara." The word chosen is 
** conformations." The selection of the term is arbitrary, as aU such 
translations of philosophical technicalities must be until a consensus of 
scholars gives currency to a fixed term. 

The conception intended to be conveyed by the term " sankhara " has, 
ss far as I know, no exact parallel in European philosophy. The nearest I 
approach to it is in the modi of Spinoza. Buddhist Sankhara are modi 
underljrjng which, be there substance or be there not, we do not 
know. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

CHAPTEB I. 

India and Buddhism 1 — 15 

India and the West, p. 1. The Triad of Buddha; the Doctrine, 
the Order, p. 6. 

Western and Eastern India — The Brahman-castes, p. 7. The 
Aryans in India and their extension, p. 9. Aryan and Vedic 
culture, p. 10, The Iiidian peoples, p. 11. The Brahman- 
castes, p. 13. 

CHAPTEE n. 

Indian Pantheism and Pessimism before Buddha . 16—60 

Symbolism of the offering — The Absolute, p. 16. Budiments of 

Indian speculation, p. 17. Sacrifice and the symbolism of 

sacrifice, p. 20. The Atman, p. 25. The Brahma, p. 27. 

The Absolute as Atman-Brahma, p. 29. 
The Absolute and the External world, p. 32. Earlier and later 

forms of the Atman idea, p. 34. Conversation of Ydjnavalkya 

with Maitreyi, p. 35. The non-ego, p. 38. 
Pessimism, Metempsychosis, Deliverance, p. 42. 
The Tempter — ^Brahman, p. 54. The Kdi/mka-Upanishad, 

Naciketas and the God of Death, p. 54. The God of Death 

and MSxa the Tempter, p. 58. Brahman, p. 59. 

CHAPTER m. 

Asceticism. Monastic Orders 61 — 71 

Beginning of Monasticism, p. 61. Advance of asceticism from 
Western India to the East: formation of nionastic orders, 
p. 63. Sects and heads of sects, p. 66. 

Sophistic, p. 68. 



^i CONTENTS. 

PART I. 

BUDDHA'S LIFE. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Character of Tradition. Legend and Myth . 72 — 91 

Doubt of the historical reality of Buddha's personality ; Buddha 
y- and the Sun-hero, p. 73. Basis of the traditions regarding 
Buddha : the sacred PS.li literature, p. 75. Character of the 
memoranda regarding Buddha's person, p. 76. Want of an 
ancient biography of Buddha, p. 78. Biographical fragments 
handed down from ancient times, p. 81. Legendary elements, 
p. 82. Examination of the history of the attainment of 
delivering knowledge, p. 86. Character of the statements 
regarding the external surroundings of Buddha's life, p. 91. 

CHAPTER n. 

Buddha's Youth 95—112: 

The Sakyas, p. 95. Buddha not a king's son, p. 99. Child- 
hood, marriage, p. 100. Departure from home, p. 103. 
Period of fruitless search, p. 105. Decisive turning-point of 
his life, p. 107. 

CHAPTER III. 

Beginning of the Teacher's Career. . . . 113—137 

The four-times seven days, p. 114. History of the Temptation, 
- p. 116. 
^ The sermon at Benares, p. 123. The first disciples, p. 130. 
Further Conversions, p. 131. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Buddha's Work ' . . 138—195- 

Buddha's work, p. 140. Daily Life, p. 141. Rainy season and 
season of Itinerancy, p. 142. • Allotment of the day, p. 149. 

Buddha's disciples, p. 150. Lay adherents, p. 162. 

Women, p. 164. Dialogue between Buddha and Visdkha, p. 167. 

Buddha's opponents, p. 170. Brahmanism, p. 171. Buddha's 
criticism of the sacrificial system, p. 172. Relations with 
other monastic orders. Criticism of self-mortifications, p. 175. 

Buddha's method of teaching, p. 176. Dialect, p. 177. His 
discourses, their scholastic character, p. 178. Type of the 
histories of conversions, p. 184. Dialogues, p. 188. Analogy, 
Induction, p. 189. Similes, p. 190. •Fables and Tales, p. 193. 

y Poetical sayings, p. 193. 

CHAPTER "v. 

Buddha's Death . '*'. 196 — 203 



CONTENTS. vii 

PART II. 

THE DOCTRINES OF BUDDHISM. 

CHAPTEB I. 
The Tenet op Suffering ...... 204 — 222 

Buddhism a doctrine of suffering and deliverance, p. 204. Its 
scholastic dialectic, p. 207. Difficulty of comprehension, p. 208. 

The four sacred truths. The first and Buddhist pessimism, 
p. 209. The Nothing and Suffering, p. 212. Dialectic founda- 
tion of pessimism ; discussion of the non-ego, p. 213. The 
tone of Buddhist pessimism, p. 221. 

CHAPTEB n. 

The Tenets of the Origin and op the Extinction 

OF Suffering 223—285 

The formula of the causal nexus, p. 223. 

The third link in the chain of causality. Consciousness and 
corporeal form, p. 227. 

The fourth to the eleventh link in the chain of causality, p. 231. 

The first and second links of the causal chain, p. 237. Ignorance, 
p. 237. The Samkharas, p. 242. Eamma (moral retribution), 
p. 243. 

Being and Becoming. Substance and Formation, p. 247. 
Dhamma, SarTikh&ra, p. 250. 

The Soul, p. 252. 

The Saint. The Ego. The NirvAna, p. 263. The Nirv&na in 
this life, p. 264. The death of the Saint, p. 266. Is the 
NirvAna the Nothing? p. 267. Buddha's conversation with 
Vacchagotta, p. 272 ; with MSIukya, p. 275. Disallowing the 
question as to the ultimate goal, p. 276. Veiled answers to the 
question: the conversation between Ehemd* and Fasenadi, 
p. 278. S&riputta's conversation with Yamaka, p. 281. 

CHAPTEB III. 

The Tenet op the Path to the Extinction op 

Suffering 286—330 

Duties to others, p. 286. The three categories of uprightness, 
self-concentration, and wisdom, p. 288. Prohibitions and 
commands, p. 290. Love and compassion, p. 292. Story of 
Long-life and Long-grief, p. 293. Story of Eun&la, p. 296. >* 
Beneficence : the story of Vessantara, p. 302. The story of 
The Wise Hare, p. 303. 

Moral self-culture, p. 305. 

M4ra, the Evil One, p. 309. ^ 

The last stages of the path of salvation. Abstractions. Saints 
and Buddhas, p. 313. ""^ 



viii CONTENTS. 

PART III. 

THE ORDER OF BUDDHA'S DISCIPLES 

The oonstitntion of the Order and its codes of laws, p. 332. 

The Order and the Dioceses. Admission and withdrawal, p. 336. 

Property. Clothing. Dwelling. Maintenance, p. 354. 

The Cultus, p. 369. 

The Order of Nuns, p. 377. 

The spiritual Order and the lay-world, p. 381. 



EXCURSUS. 

FIRST EXCURSUS. 

On the relative Geographical Location op Vedic 

AND Buddhist Culture . . . . . 391 — 411 

Separate demarcation of Aryan and Vedic culture, p. 391. The 
enumeration of peoples in the Aitareya Br&hmawa Texts, 
p. 392. Ditto in Manu, p. 393. The stocks mentioned in the 
BrahmaTia Texts, p. 395. The Kurus, p. 396. Ydjnavalkya 
and the Videhas, p. 397. The legend of Agni Vai^v&nara, 
p. 399. The Magadhas, p. 400. The stocks named in the 
J^ik-Sawihita, p. 401. The TurvaQas, p. 404. The Tntsu- 
Bharatas, p. 405. 

SECOND EXCURSUS. 

Notes and Authorities on the History op Buddha's 

Youth 411-~42(> 

The Sakyas, p. 411. The name Gotama, p. 413. Buddha not a 
king's son, p. 416. His youth and departure from Kapilavatthu, 
p. 417. The period from Pabbajjft to SambodM, p. 420. The 
Sambodhi, p. 424. 

THIRD EXCURSUS. 

Appendices and Authorities on some Matters of 

Buddhist Dogmatic .:.... 427 — 450 

1. The Nirvana, p. 427. Upadhi, p. 427. UpAddna, p. 429. 
Up&disesa, p. 433. Passages bearing on the Nirvdna, p. 438. 
Nirv&wa and Parinirv&wa, p. 444. 

2. Namariipa, p. 445. 

3. The Four Stages of Holiness, p. 448. 



INTRODUCTION. 



CHAPTER I. 



INDIA AND BUDDHISM. 



The history of the Buddhist faith begins with a band of 
mendicant monks who gathered round the person of Gotama, 
the Buddha, in the country bordering on the GaiMfes, about 
five hundred years before the 'commencement of the Christian 
era. What bound them together and gave a stamp to their 
simple and earnest world of thought, was the deeply felt and 
clearly and sternly expressed consciousness, that all earthly 
existence is f uU of sorrow, and that the only deliverance from 
sorrow is in renunciation of the world and eternal rest. 

An itinerant teacher and his itinerant followers, not unlike 
those bands, who in later times bore through Galilee the 
tidings :^Hhe kingdom of heaven is at hand,^' went through 
the realms of India with the burden of sorrow and death, and 
the announcement : '^ open ye your ears; the deliverance from 
death is found.^' 

Vast gaps separate the historical circle, in the middle of 
which stands the form of Buddha, from the world on which we 

1 



2 INDIA AND BUDDHISyr. 

are wont next to fix our thoughts, when we speak of the 
history of the world. 

Those upheavals of nature which partitioned off India from 
the cooler lands of the west and north by a gigantic wall 
of vast mountains, allotted at the same time to the people, 
who should first tread this highly favoured land, a role of 
detached isolation. The Indian nation, in a manner scarcely 
paralleled by any other nation in the civilized world, has 
developed its life out of itself and according to its own laws, 
far removed alike from the alien and the cognate peoples, 
who in the west, within the compass of closer mutual relations, 
have performed the parts to which history called them. India 
took no share in this work. For those circles of the Indian 
race, among whom Buddha preached his doctrine, the idea of 
non-Indian lands had hardly a more concrete signification than 
the conception of those other worlds, which, scattered through 
infinite space, combine with other suns, other moons and other 
hells, to form other universes. 

The day was yet to come, when an overpowering hand broke 
down the partition between India and the west — the hand of 
Alexander. But this contact of India and Greece belongs to a 
much later period than that which formed Buddhism : between 
the death of Buddha and Alexander's Indian expedition there 
elapsed perhaps about one hundred and sixty years. Who can 
conceive what might have been, if, at an earlier epoch, when 
the national life of the Indians might have opened itself more 
freshly and genially to the influences of a foreign life, such 
events had overtaken it as this incursion of Macedonian 
weapons and Hellenic culture ? For India Alexander came too 
late. When he appeared, the Indian people had long since 
come, in the depth of their loneliness, to stand alone among 
nations, ruled by forms of life and habits of thought, which 



. moiA AND THE WEST. 

diSered wholly from the standards of tlie non-Indian world. 

Without a past living in their memory, without a preaent, 
■which thoy might utilize in love and hate, without a future, for ( 
which men might hope and work, they dreamed morbid and 
proud dreams of that which h beyond all time, and of the ' 
poculiar government which ia within those everlasting realms. 
On scarcely any of the creations of the exuberant culture o£ 
India, do we find the stamp of this Indian characteristic ao 
sharply, and therefore, too, so enigmatically impressed, as on 
Buddhism. 

But the more completely do all estemal bonda between these 
distant regions and the world with which we are accLuainted, aa 
far as they consist of the intercourse of nations and the inter- 
change of their intellectual wealth, seem to us to be severed, so 
mnch the more clearly do we perceive another tie, which holds 
closely together internally what are outwardly far apart and 
apparently foreign: the bond of historical analogy between 
phenomena, which are called into being in different places by 
the working of the same law. 

Invariably, wherever a nation has been ia a position to 
develope its intellectual life in purity and tranquillity through 
a long period of time, there recurs that phenomenon, specially 
obserYftble in the domain of spiritual life, which we may venture 
to describe as a shifting of the centre of gravity of all supreme 
hnman interests from without to within : an old faith, which 
promised to men somehow or other by an offensive and defen- 
sive alliance with the Godhead, power, prosperity, victory and 
sobjectiou of their enemies, will, sometimes by imperceptible 
degrees, and sometimes by great catastrophes, be supplanted 
by a new phase of thought, whose watchwords are no longer 
welfare, victory, dominion, but rest, peace, happiness, deliver- 
ance. The blood of the sacrificial victim no longer brings 



4: INDIA AND BUDDHISM. 

reconciliation to tlie dismayed and erring heart of man : new 
ways are sought and fonnd, to overcome the enemy within the 
hearty and to become whole^' pnre^ and happy. 

This altered condition of the inner life gives rise externally 
to a new form of spiritual fellowship. In the old order of 
things nature associated religious unity with the family^ the 
clan^ and the nation jointly^ and inside these unity of faith and 
worship existed of itself. Whoever belongs to a people has 
thereby the right to^ and is bound to have a share in^ the 
worship of the popular gods. Near this people are other 
people with other gods ; for each individual it is determined as 
a natural necessity by the circumstances of his birth, what 
gods shall be to him the true and for him the operative deities. 
A particular collective body, which may be denominated a 
church, there is not and there cannot be, for the circle of all 
worshippers of the popular gods is no narrower and no wider 
than the people themselves. 

The circumstances under which the later forms of religious 
life come to the surface are diflferent. They have not an 
antiquity co-eval with the people among whom they arise. 
When they come into existence they find a faith already rooted 
in the people and giving an imprint to popular institutions. 
They must begin to gather adherents to themselves from 
among the crowds of professors of another faith. It is no 
longer natural necessity, but the will of the individual, which 
determines whether he hopes to find his salvation on this side 
or on that. There arise the forms of the school, the society, and 
the holy order. From the narrow social circle of teacher and 
disciples there may eventually grow a church, which, exceeding 
the limits of the nation, the limits of all seats of culture, may 
extend to distances the most remote. 

Were it allowable to borrow from one particular instance 



FKIKiRT AND SEOOHDARY RELIOIOm. 

of those cases whicli illustrate this, a designation for tiia 
revolution of universal occurrence, , wliich transforms the 
religious life of nations internally as well as externallyj we 
might describe it as the transition from the Old Testament *' 
dispensation to the New Testament dispensation. The honour o£ 
having given the most unique and most marked expression to 
this transition in forms unequalled in history, belongs to the 
Semitic race. Somewhere about five hundred years earlier 
than in Palestine, analogous occurrences took place among the 
Indo-Germanic nations in two places, widely separated in.J 
locahfcy, but approximate in time, in Greece and in India. 

In the former case we find the most eccentric among thsJ 
Athenians, the defining explorer of the bases of human actionJ 
who, in the ma,rket and over the wine-cup, to Alkibiades i 
well as to Plato, demonstrates that virtue can be taught and 
learned, — in the latter case there steps out as the most 
prominent among the world's physicians, who then traversed 
India in monastic garb, the noble Gotama, who calls himself 
the Exalted, the holy, highly Illuminated One, who has come 
into the world to show to gods and men the path out of the 
sorrowful prison of being into the freedom of everlasting 
rest. 

What can be more different than the relative proportions in 
which in these two spirits — and historical treatment will permit 
D8 to add as a third thoir great counterpart iu his mysterious 
mfljestic form of suffering humanity — the elements of thought 
and feeling, of depth and clearness, were aiTanged and mixed ? 
But even in the sharply-defined difference of that which f 
WBS, and BtUl is, Socratic, Buddhistic, and Christian vitality, 
historical necessity holds good. For it was a matter of 
historical necessity that, when the step was attained at which 
this spiritual reconstruction was required and called for, the 



6 INDU Attn BUDDEISM. 

Greeks were bound to meet this demand with a new philosophy, 
the Jews with a new faith. The Indian mind was wanting in 
that simphcity, which can hoheve without knowing, as well as 
in that bold clearness, which seeks to know without believing, 
and therefore the Indian had to frame a doctrine, a rehgion 
aud a philosophy combined, and therefore, perhaps, if it must 
be said, neither the one nor the other; Buddhism. Our 
sketch is intended to keep in view, at every step in detail, the 
parallelism of these phenomena. While it obtains from the 
similar historical pictures of the western world a light which 
enables it in many a dark place within ita own province to 
descry outlines and forms, it hopes on its part in return to aid 
thereby in suggesting bases founded on facts, sifted and 
assured, for the discovery of those universally vahd rules, 
which govern the changes in the religious thought of nations. 

The course which our sketch will have to follow, is clearly 
indicated by the nature of the case. Obviously, our first task 
is to describe the historical national antecedents, the ground 
and base on which Buddhism rests, above all the religious 
life and philosophical speculation of pre-Buddhist India ; for 
hundreds of years before Buddha's time movements wore in 
progress in Indian thought, which prepared the way for 
Buddhism and which cannot be separated from a sketch of the 
latter. Then the review of Buddhism will naturally divide 
itself into three heads, corresponding to that Triad, under 
which even in the very oldest time the Buddhist society in 
their liturgical language, distributed the whole of those matters 
which they esteemed sacred, the trinity of Buddha, the liaw, 
the Order. Buddha's own peraon stands necessarily in oup 
sketch also, as it did in that ancient formula, in the foreground. 
"We must acquaint ourselves with his life and bis death, with 
Iiis debut as teacher of his people, with his band of disciples. 



BUDDHA, THE LAW, THE CHURCn. 

who gathered round hiirij and with his intercourse with rich 
and poor, high and low. We shall then turn, in the second 
place, to the dogmatic thought of the oldest Buddhism, above 
all to that which stands evermore as a focus in this world of 
thought, to the doctrine of the sorrow of all that is earthly, the 
deliverance from this sorrow, the goal of aE effort to escape, 
the Nirviina. There then remains the characteristic feature of 
Buddhism, as well as of Christianity, that which externally 
binds together all who are united by a common faith, and 
a common effort for deliverance, in bonds of a common church 
fellowship. In that formula of the Buddhist trinity we find the 
order named after Buddha and the Law as the third member. 
We shall follow this coarse and, when we have spoken of 
Buddha and his Law, we shall keep in view, in the third place, 
the Order and their corporate life. We shall come to under- 
stand the organization which Buddhism has given to the 
narrower circle of believers, who havo taken their vows as 
monkf! and nuns, as well as to the lay community, who accept 
the doctrine of Buddha. With this will end the investigation 
of the most ancient Buddhism ; or, more accurately expressed, 
the sketch of Baddhism in that form, which is to us the 
oldest; and to this investigation only will our sketch be 
confined. 



WlflTZEN ASD EasTBEN InDIA — ThE BaAHMAN-CASTES. 



The stage upon which antecedent history aa well aa the 
most ancient history of Buddhism was enacted, is the 
Gangetic valley, the most Indian of Indian lands. In the 
times of which we have to speak, the Gangetic valley, almost 
alone in the whole peninsula, comprised within itself all 
centres of Aryan state-government and culture. The great 



8 WESTERN AND EA8TEBN mDIA-^THE BBAHMAN-CABTE8. 

natural divisions of this territory, wHcli coincide with stages 
in the distribution of the Indian family-stock, and with stages 
in the extension of old-Indian culture, correspond also to 
stages in the course of development which this religious 
movement has taken. 

At the outset we are carried into the north-west half of the 
Gangetic valley, to those territories where the Gangetio tracts 
and the Indus tracts approach each other, and to those 
through which the two twin streams of the Ganges and 
Tamunft flow as they converge to their conjunction. Here, 
and for a long period here alone, lay the true settlements of 
Brahmanical culture; here first, centuries before the time 
of Buddha, in the circles of Brahman thinkers, at the place 
of sacrifice and in the solitudes of forest life, those thoughts 
were thought and uttered, in which the transition from the 
old Vedic religion of nature to the doctrine of deliverance 
began and ultimately found development. 

The culture fostered in the north-west, and with it these 
thoughts, following the course of the Ganges, flowed on to 
the south-east through those powerful veins in which from of 
old beat most strongly the life of India. Among new peoples 
they assumed new forms, and when Buddha himself at last 
appeared, the two greatest kingdoms in the south-eastern half 
of the Gangetic valley, the lands of Kosala (Oude) and Magadha 
(Bihar), became the chief scenes of his teaching and labours. 
Thus there lie broad strips of land between the tracts in 
which, long before Buddha, Buddhism began its preparatory 
course of development, and those in which Buddha himself 
gathered round him his first believers; and this change of 
scenery and actors has had, it could not have been otherwise, 
an appreciable efEect in more than one respect on the course 
of the play. 



THE AltYAHS IN INDIA. 9 

We next take a glance at the tribes, which successively 
meet as, some aa the originators and others as the promoters 
of this religious movement. 

The Aryan population of India camo into the peninsniaj as 
is well known, from the north-weat. This immigration lay 
already in the remote past at the time to which the oldest 
monuments which we have of religious poetry belong. The 
Indiana had as completely lost the memory of this as the 
corresponding events had been forgotten by the Greeks and 
Italians. Fair Aryans pressed on and broke down the strong- 
holds of the aboriginal inhabitants, the "black-skinned," the 
" lawless," and "godless." The enemy was driven back, 
aonihilated, or snbjugated. When the songs of the Veda were 
eting, Aryan clans, though perhaps only as adventurous, 
solitary pioneers, had already pressed on to where the Indus in 
the west, and possibly also to where the Ganges in the east, 
empty their mighty waters into the sea ; inexhaustibly rich 
regions in which the Hocks of the Aryans grazed and the 
Aryan deities were honoured with prayer and sacrifice. 

Probably the first immigrants, and, therefore, the farthest 
forward to the east, whether confederate or disassociated we 
know not, aro those tribes which meet ua later on east of the 
jnnction of the Gangoa and Tamunft, settled on both banks of 
the Ganges, the Anga and Magadha, the Videha, the Kfl5i and 
Kosala. 

A second wave of the great tide of immigration brought with 
jt new groups of Aryans, a number of tribes closely intercon- 
nected, who, surpassing their brothers intellectually, have 
produced the most ancient great monuments of the Indian 
mind which we possess, and which we call by the name of the 
Vedas. We find these tribes at the time of which the hymns of 
the Big Veda give us a picture, near the entrances of the Indian 



10 WESTERN AND EASTERN INDIA— THE BRAHMAN-CASTES. 

peninsula^ at the Indus and in the Fanjab ; later on they are 
driven to the south-east and have founded on the upper stream 
of the Gkinges and on the TamunS, those kingdoms, which are 
called in '^Manu^s Institutes" the land of the *'Brahmarshis/' the 
home and the type of holy, upright living : '' By a Brahman 
who has been born in this land,^^ says the Law (of Manu), 
''shall all men on earth be instructed as to their conduct/^ 
The names of the Bharata tribe, Kuru, Panc&la, standi out 
among the peoples of this classic land of Vedic culture, which 
lies before our gaze in clear illumination as a land rich in 
advanced intellectual creation, while the destinies of the other 
tribes, who had immigrated at an earlier date, remained in 
darkness until the period when they came into contact with the 
culture of their brother tribes.* 

In a Vedic work, the " Brahmana of the hundred paths," we 
have a remarkable legend, in which is clearly depicted the 
course which the extension of the cult and culture of the Veda 
took. The flaming god Agni Vaigv&nara, the sacrificial fire,, 
wanders eastward from the river Sarasvati, beyond the old 
sacred home-land of the Vedic Sacra. Eivers cross his path^ 
but Agni burns on across all streams, and after him follow the 
prince Mdthava and the Brahman Gotama. Thus they came to 
the river SadS<nird, which flows down from the snowy moun- 
tains in the north : Agni does not cross it. " Brahmans crossed 
it not in former ages for Agni Vai^v&nara had not burned 
beyond it. But now many Brahmans dwelt beyond it to the 
east. This was formerly very bad land, inundated soil, for 
Agni Vai^vSnara had not made it habitable. But now it is 
very good land, for Brahmans have since made it enjoyable 

* Further proofs in support of the view here taken of the separation of 
the western Yedic and the eastern non-Yedic tribes, are advanced at the 
close of this work in Excursus !• 



ARYAtl AND YEDW CULTCEE. 11 

iirongli offerings ; " — in India bad laud ia uot couvertod into 

id, as in the rest of the world, by peasants who plough and 

igj but by sacrificing Brahmnos. Princo Mflthava takes up 

B abode to the oast of the Sad^nir^, in tho bad land, which 

Lgni had not essayed to enter. His descendants are the rulers 

f Videha. The opposition is clear in which these legsnda 

lace the eastern tribes to the western, among whom Agni 

^ai^vanara, the ideal champion of Vedic li£e, ia fi-oni of old at 

Whoever pursuoa an inquiry into the beginning of tho 

itension of Buddhism, must remember that tho home of the 

ildest Buddhist communities lies in tho tracts or near the 

niits of thoBo tracts, into which Agni Vai^v^iara did not crosH 

in hia flaming course when ho travelled to the east. 

We are unable to fix any graduated series of dates, either 
by years or by centuries, indicating tho progress of this 
rictoriouB campaign, in which Aryans and Vedic culture over- 
ftn the Gangetio valley. But, what is more important, we are 
i)lo from the layers of Vedic literature which overlie each 
itber, to gather some idea of how, under the inSaeuces of a 
7 homo, of Indian nature and Indian climate, a chango came 
iver the life of the people-r-first and foremost of the Vedio 
teoplcs, the tribes of tho north-west — and how the popular 
ind received that morbid impression of sorrow and disease, 
rbich has survived all changes of fortune, and which will last 
B long as there is an Indian people. 

In tho sultry, moist, tropical lands of the Ganges, highly 
rndowed by nature with rich gills, the people who wore in tho 
rime of youthful vigour when thoy penetrated hither from tho 
lorth, soon ceased to be young and strong. Men and poopIeB 
Domo rapidly to maturity in that land, like tho plants of tho 
tropical world, only just aa rapidly to fall aaleop both bodily 
md Bpiritually. The sea with its invigorating breeze, and tho 



12 WESTERN AND EA8TEBN INDIA— THE BRAEMAN-CA8TE8. 

scliool of noble national energy, play no part in the life of the 
Indians. The Indian has above all, at an early stage, turned 
aside from that which chiefly preserves a people young and 
healthy, from the battle and struggle for home, country, and 
law. The thought of freedom with all the quickening, and, it 
is true, also with all the deadly powers which it brings in its 
train, has always been unknown and incomprehensible in 
India. The free will of man may not chafe against the system 
of Brahma, the natural law of caste, which has given the 
people into the power of the king and the king into the power 
of .the priest. Well might it awaken the astonishment of the 
Greek to see in India the peasant calmly go forth between 
opposing armies to till his fields:* ''He is sacred and inviolable 
for he is the common benefactor of friend and foe.'^ But in 
what the Greeks mention as a beautiful and sensible feature in 
Indian national life, there lies something more than mere soft 
mildness. When Hannibal came, the Eoman peasant ceased 
to sow his fields. The Indians are wholly strangers to the 
highest interests and ideals which are at the basis of all 
healthy national life. Will and action are overgrown by 
thought. But when once the internal balance is disarranged 
and the natural relationship between the spirit and the reality 
of the world is disturbed, thought has no longer the power to 
take a wholesome grasp of what is wholesome. Whatever is, 
appears to the Indian worthless compared to the marginal 
illuminations with which his fancy surrounds it, and the images 
of his fancy grow in tropical luxuriance, shapeless and dis- 
torted, and turn eventually with terrific power against their 
creator. To him the true world, hidden by the images of his 
own dreams, remains an unknown, which he is unable to trust 

* This fact mentioned by Megasthenes is also confirmed by moderx 
writers, cf. Irving, " Theory and Practice of Caste," p. 75. 



TEE INDIAN PEOPLE. 



IS 



and over which, he has no control : life and happiness ia this 
world hreak down under the burden of excessively cmahing 
contemplation of the hereafter. 

The visible manifestation of the world to come in the midst 
of the present world ia the caste of the BrahmanSj who have 
knowledge and power, who can open and shut to man the 
approach to the gods, and make friends or enemies for him 
above. Those powers, which were excluded from development 
1 political life, could find in the case of the Brahmans alone a 
sphere for creation, bat verily for what a creation ! Instead of 
a Lyknrgns or a Themistokles, whom fate peremptorily denied 
to the Indians, they have had all the more Arunis and 
T&jnavalkyaa, who knew how to found with masterly hand 
the mysteries of fire-offering and soma-offering, and to give 
currency in not leas masterly fashion to those claims which aro 
advanced against the secular classes by tho champions of the 
kingdom which is not of this world. 

No one can understand the course which Indian thought has 
J without keeping in view the picture, with its lights and 
shadows, of this order of philosophers, as the Greeks named the 
Brahmanical caste. And above all it must be remembered 
that, at that time at least, which has shaped the determinative 
fandameutal thoughts for the intellectual eRbrta of a subsequent 
ige and for Buddhism also, this priestly class was something 
more tlian a vain and greedy priestcraft, that it was the necessary 
form in which tho innermost essence, the evil genius, if we may 
10 call it, of the Indian people has embodied itself. 

The days of the Brahman passed in solemn routine. At 
Y step those narrow, restraining limits held him in, which 
the holy dignity that he represented imposed on the inner and 
outer man. He passed his youth in hearing and learning tho 
£acred word, for a true Brahman is he alone " who has heard." 
And if he acquired tho reputation "of having heard," his 



H EASTERN AND WESTERN IHDU—THE BRABMAN-CASTES. 

adnll; life passed in teacUng, in the villago.or oat ia the 
solitude of the forest in the consecrated circle, on which the 
Bnn shone in the east, where alone the most secret inBtructioH 
tould be imparted openly to the muffled scholar. Or he was 
fi be found at the place of sacrifice, performing for himself 
and for others the sacred office, which, with its countless 
observances, demanded the most painful minuteness and the 
most laborious proficiency, or he fulfilled the life-long doty of 
Brahma- offering, that is, the daily prayer from the sacred 
Veda. Well might riches flow into his hands by the re- 
mnoeration for sacrifice, which kings and nobles gave to the 
Brahmans, bat he passed as most worthy, who lived, not by 
offerings for others, but by the gleanings of the field, which he 
gathered, or by alms for which he had not asked, or such 
charity as he had begged as a favour. Still, living even as 
a beggar, he looked on himself as exalted above earthly 
potentates and subjects, made of other stuff than they. The 
Brahmans call themselves gods, and, in treaty with the gods 
of heaven, these gods of earth know themselves possessed of 
weapons of the gods, weapons of spiritual power, before which 
all earthly weapons snap powerless. " The Brahmans," says a 
Vedic song, " carry ahai-p arrows : they have darts ; the aim, 
which they take, fads not. They attack their enemy in their 
holy ardour and their fury, they pierce him through from afar." 
The king, whom they anoint to rule over their people, ia not 
their ting ; the priest, at the coronation, when he presents the 
ruler to hia subjects, says : " This is your king, people ; the 
long over us Brahmans ia Soma." They, the Brahmans, 
standing without the pale of the State, bind themselvea 
together in a great confederacy, which extends as far as the 
ordinances of the Veda are current. The members of this 
confederacy are the ouly teachers of the rising youth. The 
young Indian of Aryan birth is as good as out-caste, if he be 



TBE BRASHAS-CABTES. 15 

not brought at a proper age to a Brahman teacher, to receive 
from him the sacred cord, the mark of the spiritual twice-homj 
and to be inducted into the wisdom of the Vedas. " Into my 
control," then says the teacher, "I take thy heart, let thy 
thought follow my thought, with all thy soul rejoice in my 
word." And through the long years, which the pupil passes 
in the master's house, he is coerced by his fear and obedience 
to him. The house of the Brahman is, like the army in tbo 
xnodern State, the great school, which demands of every one a 
share of tho best part of his life, to discharge him eventually 
with the indelibly implanted consciousness of subordination to 
the idea embodied, in tho one case in the State, in the other 
case in tho Brahmau-class. 

In the strength and the weakness of the forms of life of this 
dass of thinkers lies also, as it were in a germ, the strength 
and weakness of their thought. They were, so to speak, 
banished into a self-made world, cut off from the refreshing 
atmosphere of reaj life, by nothing shaken in their unbounded 
l)elief in themselves and in their unique omnipotence, in 
lomparison with which all that gave character to the life of 
AherSj must have appeared^Jsmall and contemptible. And 
Urns, therefore, in their thought also the utmost boldness of 
ITorld-discI aiming abstraction shows itself, which soars beyond 
!^ that is visible into the regions of the spaceless and timeless, 
> caper in sickly company in baseless chimeras, without limit 
: aim, in fancies such as can be conceived only by a spirit 
which has lost all taato for the sober realities of fact. They 
have created a mode of thought in which the great and 
profound has joined partnership with childish absurdities so 
uniquely that the history of the attempts of humanity to 
comprehend self and the'^unlverso affords no parallel. To 
study this thought in its development is our nest task. 



CHAPTER IL 

INDIAN PANTHEISM AND PESSIMISM BEFORE 

BUDDHA. 



Symbolism of the Offebino — The Absolute. 

The rudiments of Indian speculation extend back to the 
lyric poetry of the Big Veda. Here, in the oldest monument of 
Vedic poetry, among songs at sacrifice and prayers to Agni 
and Indra for protection, prosperity, and victory, we discover 
the first bold efforts of a reflecting mind, which turns its back 
on the spheres of motley worlds of gods and myths, and, in 
conscious reliance on its own power, approaches the enigmas 
of being and origination : — 

" Nor Aught nor Naught existed, yon bright sky 
Was not, nor heaven's broad roof outstretched above. 
"What covered all ? What sheltered ? What concealed P 
Was it the water's fathomless abyss P 

** There was not death — yet was there naught immortal, 
There was no confine betwixt day and night ; 
The only One breathed breathless by itself. 
Other than It there nothing since has been. 

** Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled 
In gloom profound — an ocean without light — 
The germ that still lay covered in the husk 
Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat. 



BUDIMENTa OF INDIAN SPECULATION. 17 

« Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here, 
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang P 
The gods themselves came later into being — 
Who knows from whence this great creation sprang P 

** He from whom all this great creation came, 
Whether His will created or was mute. 
The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven. 
He knows it— or perchance even He knows not."* 

And in another song a poet speaks, who, estranged from the 
faith in the old deities, seeks after the one God, ^' who alone 
is Lord over all that moves : '' 

*' He who gives breath. He who gives strength ; 
Whose command all the bright gods revere. 
Whose shadow is immortality, whose shadow is death ; — 
Who is the Grod to whom we shall offer our sacrifice P 

** He through whose greatness these snowy mountains are, 
And the sea, they say, with the distant river (the Easa) — 
He of whom these regions are the two arms ; — 
Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice P 

*' He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm — 
He through whom the heaven was 'stablished, nay the highest 

heaven — 
He who measured out the space in the sky P — 
Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice P 

" He who by His might looked even over the waters 
Which held power and generated the sacrificial fire, 
He who alone is God above all gods ; — 
Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice Pf" 

EachL strophe of the lyric ends in these words : '^ who is 
the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ? ^^ The gap is 
clearly perceptible which lies between inquiring hymns like 
this and the positive faith of an earlier age, which knew, but 

* Big Veda, x. 129. Translated by Max Miiller. 
t Ibid., z. 121. Translated by Max Miiller. 

2 



18 SYMBOLISM OF SACRIFICE^THE ABSOLUTE. 

inquired not regarding the gods to whom they should make 
sacrifice. 

We can only touch with brief comment this first flash of 
conscious thought of the Indians regarding the fundamental 
questions of the universe and life. The development of 
speculation — or, rather, its self -development out of a world of 
phantasms — first assumes a connected progressive form at a 
time which is later — ^probably much later — than that to which 
these hymns, quoted from the Eig Veda, belong. It was that 
period of widely ramified and exuberant literary production 
which has given birth to the endless mass of sacrificial works 
and mystic collections of dogmas and discourses, written in 
prose, which are usually named Br&hmana, Aranyaka, and 
Upanishad. The age of these works, upon which alone we 
can rely for this portion of our sketch, we can determine only 
approximately and within uncertain limits. We shall scarcely 
be much in error, if we place their origin somewhere between 
the ninth and seventh centuries before the Christian era. The 
development of thought, which was progressing in this period, 
while resting apparently on the basis of the old faith in gods, 
had really undermined that faith, and, forcing its way through 
endless voids of fantastic chimeras, had at last created a new 
ground of religious thought, the belief in the undisturbed, 
unchangeable universal-Unity, which reposes behind the world 
of sorrow and impermanence, and to which the delivered, 
leaving this world, returns. On this very foundation, moreover, 
centuries after the Brahmanical thinkers had laid it, were the 
doctrine and the church built, which were named after the 
name of Buddha. 

We now proceed to trace step by step the process of that 
self-destruction of the Vedic reHgious thought, which has 
produced Buddhism as its positive outcome. 



jzDDZjrrars OF J.voa.v speculatios. 19 

At the time wlien tliis process begins, all spiritual exercises 
■wliioh are performed in India are concentrated ronnd one fociiSj 
the sacrifice. The world, which surrounds the Brahmans, is 
the place of sacrifice; the matters, of which, above all others, 
he has knowledge, are those relating to sacrificial duties. He 
mast understand the sacrifice with all its secrets, for under- 
standing is all-subduing power. By this power the gods have 
chained the demons — " mighty," so runs the promise for those 
who have knowledge, " doth he himself become, and powerless 
becomes his enemy and controverter, who possesses such 
knowledge." 

The elements, of which this knowledge of the meaning of 
the sacred sacrificial ritea consists, are twofold; some spring 
from the spiritual bequests of the past, and others are a newly- 
acqtm-ed possession. 

On the one side, the legacy inherited from the time of the 
imple belief in Agni and Indra and Varuna, and all the hosts 
uf gods, before whom fathers and ancestors had bowed them- 
selves in prayer and sacrifice. Every hand laid on the offering 
points to these. When the offerer seizes the sacred implement, 
he eays, "I grasp thee at the call of god Savitar, with the 
arms of the A^vins, with Pushan's hands." If the sacrificial 
I object is to be consecrated with sprinkling of water, he says to 
I the waters, " Indra hath chosen you as his associates at the 
conquest of Vritra; yo have chosen Indra as your associate 
at the conquest of Vritra." And from early mom until evening 
there resound at the place of sacrifico praises and songs to 
Ushas, the redness of dawn, the divine maiden, who, with her 
glistening steeds, approaches the dwellings of man, dispensing 
blessings; to Indra, who, fired by the aoma-draught, breaks 
ia wild battle the legions of demons with his thunderbolt; 
to Agni, the benign god, tho heavenly guest, who beams ia 



20 SYMBOLISM OF SACRIFICE^THE ABSOLUTE. 

the habitations of men^ and bears their sacrificial gifts to 
heaven. 

But the world of the old gods, the living gods of flesh and 
blood, can no longer of itself alone satisfy the mind of the 
later age. Ever stronger becomes the tendency to name by 
their proper names the powers which govern the wide world 
and the life of man. There is space ; the Indians named it 
*' the regions of the world.'' There is time, with its creating 
and destroying power; the Indians named it "the year.'^ 
There are the seasons, the moon, day and night, earth and air, 
the sun — "he who bums,'' and the wind — "he who blows." 
There are the breath-powers, which pass through the human 
body. There are thought and speech, "which are one with 
each other and yet separate." The movements and operations 
of these powers govern the course of the universe, and bring 
men weal and woe. 

And now men look for an answer, in the new language of 
their own age, to the question which the sacrifice and the 
world of gods, to whom sacrifice is made, suggest to the 
thought. Then the atmosphere assumes a state in which 
mysteries and symbols increase. In all the surroundings of 
the Brahman at the altar of sacrifice, and above all in the 
sacred office which he there performs, the god Agni and the 
god Savitar will no longer be present alone, but there shall be 
there all the hidden powers which move to and fro in the 
universe, "for the universe," it is said, "is swayed by the 
movement of sacrifice." What meets the eye in the offering 
is not merely what it is or appears to be, but there is something 
further — that which it signifies. Speech and action have a 
double signification, the apparent and the hidden; and, if 
human knowledge follows the apparent, yet the gods love the 
hidden and abhor the apparent. 



ELEHENTS OP THB 8Y3£B0L1SM OF SAORIFICS. 21 

Nambera have mysterious power, words and syllables have 
myaterioua power, rhythma have mysterious power. There is 
an imaginary play between imaginary forces which is subjecfc 
to no law of perceptibility. Consecration (dikshfi) escapes from 
the gods ; they search for It through the months j they find 
it neither with summer nor with winter, but they find it with 
the months of the cool season (^i^ira) ; therefore man must 
consecrate himself when the months of the cool Beason have 
come round. The metra fly up to heaven to bring the soma- 
draught ; the voice speaks standing in the seasons. 

The system of offering is a type of the year, or, briefly, the 
sacrifice is the year ; tbe officiating priests are the seasons of 
the year; the objects offered up are the months. We should 
Import something foreign into these plays of thought if we 
attempted to trace in them any sharp ly-dofioed line of dcmar- . 
cation between the being and the signifying, between the 
reality and its representative; the one overlaps the other. 
" Praj&pati (the Creator) created as his image that which is 
the offering. Therefore people say the offering is Praj3,pati. 
For he created it as his image." 

Morning after morning, and evening after evening, two 
offerings are placed in the sacred fire ; the one is the past, the 
other the future; the one is to-day, the other the morrow. 
To-day is certain; therefore, the first of both offerings will be 
made with an utterance of sacrificial formula, for speech is 
certainty. The morrow is uncertain; therefore, the second 
offering will be made in silence, for silence, as tbe Indian says, 
is tbe oncertain. 

In the confused cloud-world of these mysteries, there lurt, 
concealed from the eye of the ignorant, countless enemies of 
tie destinies of the children of men ; days and nights roll on, 
and bear away with them the blessings which the good deeds 



22 SYMBOLISM OF SACRIFICE—TEE ABSOLUTE. 

of men had won for them ; above the realm of changing days 
and nights the sun, " who shines/^ is enthroned j and "he who 
* burns is death. Since he is death, therefore the creatures 
who dwell below him die ; those who live beyond him are the 
gods; therefore are the gods immortal. His rays are the 
traces, wherewith all these creatures are yoked to life. Whose- 
soever life he wishes, he draws to himself and he departs — he 
dies.'^ But the wise man knows formulas and offerings, which 
exalt him above the region of rolling days and nights, and 
above the world, in which the sun, with his heat, has power 
over life and death. Day and night rob not him of the reward 
of his works ; he sets his life free from death — *' that is the 
dehverance from death, which is in the Agnihotra offering.^' 

The world thus darkens down for the fancy of this race to a 
dismal arena for the movement of unlimited lifeless shapes. 
Symbols are heaped unceasingly on symbols ; wherever thought 
turns, new gods and new miraculous powers confront it, each 
as formless as the rest. That God, it is true, who was before 
all gods and all existences, the creator of worlds, Praj&pati, 
who was alone in the beginning and desired " might I become 
a plurality, might I produce creatures," stands out above all ; 
and in the hot work of toilsome creation he gave forth from 
himself the worlds, and gods and men, and space and time, and 
thought and speech. But even the thought of Prajapati, the 
lord of beings, evoked no louder response from the breast of 
the believer; the image of the Creator floats hazily among 
others in the great, gray, shapeless mist, which, surrounds the 
world of creatures. 

Wherever we look in the vast mass of monuments, which the 
strange activity of that age has bequeathed to us, there is 
nowhere to be seen an operation of the inquiring mind, pro- 
ceeding from the depths, nowhere that effort of bold thought. 



EMPTINESS OF THE SlilBOLISif. 



23 



which plays for a heavy stake and wins. That imbecile wisdom 
which knows ail things and declares all thinj^a, sits enthroned 
in self -content in the middle of its absurd images, and not even 
quakes before the spectral hosts which it has conjured up ; 
wherefore aliould the wise tremble, who knows tho word before 
which spirits and demons bow ? One generation after another 
grows up under the ban of confused thoughts, and one after 
another unwearied adds its quota to the contributions of 
departed races, and then it also passes away. 

Our eyes must accustom themselves, until they have learned 
to see in the dim light of this shadow-land, in which tho fanciful 
images of those ages move, crowding formlessly together. 
But then even here there reveals itself a kind of natural law 
operating in the region of the spiritual. Let us first on our 
part trace what is preserved to us in the oldest monuments of 
those speculations, and then the work of later generations 
sneceasively, and thus as we mount up layer by layer, tho 
picture which we see changes, and the changes have 
connection and meaning. 

The more important of these conceptions of the fancy grad- 
ually emerge from the confused massj press into the foreground, 
trample down the weak, and step triumphantly into the centre 
of every circle. The powers and symbols, on whose working 
the Indian thinker fancies the system of the universe to rest, 
are what they are, not in and hy themselves alone, but tbe 
farther thought goes, the more clearly do they appear to rest 
on great fundamental forces, from which theu- exiatenco is 
principally derived, or in which they are again merged, when 
the goal of their being is reached. From the surface, where 
each phenomenon presents itself as something difEerent from 
every other, the speculative imagination strives to pierce into 
the depths below, in which lies tho unifying bond of all diver- 



24^ SYMBOLISM OF SAOBIFICE-^THE ABSOLUTE. 

sity. Man looks for the essence in things^ and the essence of 
the essence,* for the reality, the truth of phenomena, and the 
truth of the true. This quest of the substance is necessarily a 
search for unity in all diversity. And thus thought lays hold 
separately upon one single group of phenomena, connected by 
a common feature, and regards them as united in a common 
root, and ere long thought passes all bounds and boldly declares, 
so and so is the universe. And then it lets go what it laid hold 
of ; that one phenomenon which had just now been declared to be 
the universe is lost again in the floating crowd of all the powers, 
which hold sway in man and the world, in space and time, in 
word and speech. 

In none of the Vedic texts can we trace the genesis of the 

* Cf. <* Chandogya TJpanishad," i. 1, 2 :— " The essence of all beings is 
the earth, the essence of the earth is water, the essence of water the plants, 
the essence of plants man, the essence of man speech, the essence of 
speech the Eig Veda, the essence of the Eig Veda the Stoa Veda, the 
essence of the Sama Veda the TJdgitha (which is Om). That Udgitha 
(Om) is the best of all essences, the highest, deserving the highest place, 
the eighth." 

The conception which lies at the bottom of this eight-fold series of 
essence, essence of the essence, and so on, is (in the words of Max 
Miiller) something like this : — " Earth is the support of all beings, water 
pervades the earth, plants arise from water, man lives by plants, speech 
is the best part of man, the Eig Veda the best part of speech, the S^ma 
Veda the best extract from the Jiik, Udgitha, or the syllable Om, the 
crown of the Skma. Veda." 

Later on, where the idea of the Brahma will claim our attention, we 
shall have to speak of the symbolical relation or of the hidden intrinsic 
identity, which the Indian fancy detects between nature and the world of 
language, especially the sacred word. This passage has an important 
bearing on this, inasmuch as it shows how, in the mind of the Indian, the 
objects of nature point back through a series of middle terms, to the 
word of the Veda, and finally to the Om, the most suitable expression of 
the Erahma, as it were to the life-giving power in them. 



EMERamo OF CMTSAL POINTS. 25 

conception of the nnity in all that is, from the first dim indi- 
cations o£ this thought until it attains a steady brilliancy, aa 
clearly aa in that work, which, next to the hymns of the Rig 
Teda, deserves to be regarded as the most significant in the 
whole range of Vedic literature, the '* Br&hmana of the hundred 
paths." 

The " Brahmana of the hundred paths " shows us first and 
foremost how from these confused masses of ideas the notion 
of the " ego " presses to the front of all others, and will 
domineer over them, in the language of the Indiana : the 
Atman, the subject, in which the forces and functions of human 
life find root and footing. The breath-powers penetrate the 
inman body and give it life ; the Atman is lord over all breath- 
powers; he is the central power, which worts and creates in 
the basis of personal Hfe, the " innominate breath-power," from 
which the other " nominate " breath-powers derive their being. 
" A decade of breaths truly," so says the BrJthmana, " dwells in 
man ; the Atman is the eleventh, on him aredependent the breath- 
powep3." "Prom the Atman come all these members (of the 
human body) into being," " of all that is, the Atman is the first." 

A central point is here found for the domaiu of human 
personality, with its limbs and its faculties, that power which 
is the iutrinsic and essential, working in all forms of life. And 
what the Indian thinker has conceived in the particular " ego " 
extends in his idea, by inevitable necessity, to the universe at 
largo beyond him; according to him microcosm and macrocosm 
continuously play corresponding parts, and here and yonder 
similar appearances point significantly to each other. Aa the 
hnman eye resembles the cosmic eye, the sun, and as the gods, 
resembling in the general system the human breath-powers, act 
as the breath-powers of the universe, so also the Atman, the 
central substance of the " ego," steps forth on the domain of 



2G SYMBOLISM OF SACRIFICE— THE ABSOLUTE. 

the bare human Id dividual, and is taken as the creating power 
that moves the great body of the universe. He, the lord of 
the breath-powers, the firstling, from whom the limbs of the 
body were formed, is at the same time the lord of the gods, the 
creator of creatures, who has caused the worlds to proceed 
from his ^^'ego -/' the Atman is Prajapati. Yea, the very 
expression occurs, " the Atman is the universe/^ At this stag© 
this phrase is only one play of the fancy among a thousand 
others, not the thought grasped in its fulness, that the bound- 
less universe and the restricted ^^ ego,'' which contemplates it> 
are in truth one. A crowd of other figures pushes to the 
front and diverts the attention from the Atman, who is the 
universe; but the expression once uttered, though it die 
away, works on in secret and awaits the time when he who 
once uttered it, will turn his thoughts back to it. 

Meanwhile from another train of conceptions another power 
not less potent pushes itself forward, with a claim to h& 
rjcognized as the great cosmic energy. The sacred word, the 
estabhshed guide in sacrifice, is preserved in its three forms 
of hymn, formula, and song,* making up the ^'threefold 
knowledge '^ of those who knew the Vedas. The spiritual fluid, 
which bears the sacred word and its supporters, the Brahmans, 
floating above the profane word and the profane world, is the 
Brahma rf it is the power which dwells in hymn, formula, and 
song, as the power of holiness ; ^^ the truth of the word is the 
Brahma.'* 

* That is Eic (hymn of the Eig Veda), Yajus (sacrificial formula of the 
Yajur Veda), Saman (songs contained in the SUma Veda). — Translator. 

t It will not be superfluous to bear in mind that the times, of which wo 
are speaking, know nothing of the god Brahman. While " brahman,'* 
**brlbhmana" occur frequently enough in the oldest texts in the 
signification of " Priest," the god Brahman appears first only in the very 
latest parts of the Veda. 



1I!E EGO, THE AT3IAK. t, 

The world of the word is to tlio Indian another inicrocosni. 
In the rhythm of the sacred song he hears the echoes of the 
rhythm of the universe resound.* Thus must that substance 
from which the sacred word deriyes its being, also be a power 
■which operates at the basis of all thingB. The fanciful 
suttleties, regarding the enigma of the Brahma reposing in the 

• Of the potmtlcBs pasassea which could be quoted in illustration of 
this, let ua merely refer to one, to the workbg out Jiy tte theologiana of 
the Sama Veda of the idea of the symbolic relation of the Saman- 
(song-) diction witli its five parts (" CLundogya Upajuahad," ii. 2, etc.)- 
"Let a maa meditate oa the fivefold Slman as the fire worlds. The 
Mnkfljaistbe earth, the praatlva the fire, the udgitha the sty,thepratih£Lra 
the sun, the nidhana heaven. — Let a man nieditato on the fivefold Saman 
aarain. The hinliVra is wind {that brings (he rain) ; the praetavais 'the 
cloud is come;' the udgitha is ' it rains;' the pratihara, 'it flashes, it 
thunders ;' the nidhana ' it stops.' There is rain for hiin and he brings 
lain for others, who, thus knowing, meditates on the fivefold Saman aa 
rain." 

And then it goes on through a series of other comparisons ; the Saman 
with its five parts represents the waters, the seasons, the animals, and 
more of the like. Often these symboUzinga rest upon nothing more than 
the most meaningless sup crficiah ties, as when the matter treated of is the 
three syllables of the word udgitha (sacred song), " ut (ud) is breath, for 
by means of breath a man rises (ut-tishthati) ; gi is speech, for speeches 
are called girah; tha is food, for by means of food all subsist (sthita)." 
[" Ch&nd. Up.," L 3, G. To this passage Max Miiller furnishes from 
Irish sources interestingparallels in the fanciful conceits of the Christians 
of the Middle Ages.] However senseless such fancies may appear to ns, 
they cannot be overlooked as precursors o£ the most important erent m 
the religious development of India. In the symbolical interpretation or 
mystical identification, which the individnal word or the individual sacred 
•ong furnishes, of the individual phenomenon in the lite of nature or of 
the ego, (he ultimate tendency of this development is being shaped : the 
identification of the central power in the whole range of the sacred 
word (Brahma), with the central power o£ the human person (Atman), 
and with the life-centre of nature : the genesis of the idea of the universal 
One. 



28 SYMBOLISM OF SACRIFICE^THE ABSOLUTE. 

Vedic text, and the priestly pride of the human supporters of 
the Brahma, combine to elevate this entity to a dominant 
position in the Indian's world of thought. '^ He makes,'' it is 
said of the priest who completes a specific sacrificial operation, 
" the Brahma the head of this universe ; therefore the Brahman 
is the head of this universe." There was an ancient Vedic ode 
which began : " On truth is the earth founded, on the sun is the 
heaven founded. By the right do the Adityas (the supreme 
gods, the sons of the Aditi, the infinite) consist." Now it is said 
'' the Brahma is the word, the truth in the word is the Brahma." 
*' The Brahma is the right." '' By the Brahma are the heavens 
and the earth held together." 

Here is an example furnished more illustrative than anything 
else of the peculiarities of Indian thought. This gradual, 
persistent pressure of an idea, which arises not from the 
contemplation of visible nature, but from the speculation about 
the sacredness of the holy Vedic text — the pressure of this idea 
and of this word until all the loftiest and deepest conceptions 
which the mind can grasp are associated with this word. 

This stage is not attained at one bound. When it is said, 
*^ The Brahma is the noblest among the gods," it is also said 
in another place in proximity to this, ^^ Indra and Agni are the 
noblest among the gods." Well, the power of sacred truth, 
which the Indian calls the Brahma, has stepped into a position 
among the most prominent forces of the universe; it is 
recognized as the power which holds the heavens and the earth 
together, but it is not yet the first and last — the one and all. 
The young upstart among the ideas is not yet sufficiently 
powerful to push the ancient creator and ruler of the worlds, 
Prajdpati, from his throne ; but he is become the nearest to 
this throne. '^ The spirit, Prajapati," thus says the BriLhmana 
of the hundred paths, ^' wished : May I become a plurality — 



TBE BRAEMA. 

may I propagate myself." He exerted himself — he took on 
himself severe pangs. When he exerted himself, when ho had 
eodnred severe pangs, he created the Brahma first, the three- 
fold knowledge. That became a support for him; therefore 
people say, " The Brahma is the support of this universe." 
Therefore, ho who has learned (the sacred word) has gained 
a support, for what is tho Brahma is the support, " The 
Brahma," it is also said, " is tho fii'st-born in this universe." 
It is not yet the everlasting unborn, from which everything 
that ia has been bom, but it is the first-boru among the 
children of Praj^pati, the father of worlds. 

There is something of the calm uncontrollable necessity of 
a natural process in this emerging or growth of both these 
notions, the Atman and the Brahma, each of which first gains 
the dominant position in its own circle, and is then carried 
forward by tho progresa of thought into the expanse of worlds; 
and there also plays an ever-widening part. Though the 
images which were originally associated with each, in the mind 
of the Indian, were so different, yet it could not but he that, 
in the course of such a development, the thought of the Atman 
should assimilate itself continually more and more to that of 
the Brahma, and that of the Brahma to that of the Atman. 
"Tho first-bom in this universe is the Brahma," as has been 
said. And of the Atman it is said in another place, " Of all 
that exists, the first existent is tho Atman." Tho Brahma ia 
tSie face of the universe, and " the firstling of this rmivorso " is 
the Atman. The Brahma displays himself in hymn, formula, 
and song; "the nature of tho Atman consists," it is further 
said, " of hymn, formula, and song." The definite, obviously 
presented, and limited meaning, which simple consciousness 
Iiad at one time attached to the idea of the Atman, and to the 
idea of tho Brahma, extends itself to unlimited ranges, and 



30 SYMBOLISM OF SAORIFIOE^-THE ABSOLUTE. 

then the difference between the two ideas gradually vanishes. 
The imagination of the Indian, eager to grasp the unity 
underlying things, is wanting in the power to preserve the 
images of the diflTerent notions within their several limitations, 
and in their separation from each other. 

And the remaining barriers are passed at last. What here- 
tofore emerged momentarily, and was again lost in the current 
of an erratic imagination, is grasped anew by the mind, to be 
lost no more again : the conception of the great everlasting 
and eternal One, in which all diversity vanishes, from which are 
spirit and universe, and in which they live and move. It is 
called the Atman, it is called the Brahma ; Atman and Brahma 
converge in the One, in which the yearning spirit, wearied of 
wandering in a world of gloomy, formless phantasms, finds its 
rest. " That which was,^' it is written, ^^ that which will be, 
I praise, the great Brahma, the One, the Imperishable, the wide 
Brahma, the One Imperishable.'^ '^To the Atman let man 
bring his adoration, the spiritual, whose body is the breath, 
whose form the light, whose soul the aether, who assumes what 
forms he will, quick as a thought, full of right purpose, full of 
right performance, the source of every vapour, of every essence, 
who extends to all the regions of the world, who pervades this 
universe, silent and unmoved. Small as a grain of rice, or 
barley, or hirse, or a millet-seed, this spirit dwells in the ego ; 
golden, like a light without smoke, is he; wider than the 
heavens, wider than the asther, wider than this earth, wider 
than all the range of being ;• he is the ego of the breath, he is 
my ego (Atman) ; with this Atman shall I, when I separate 
from this state, unite myself. Whosoever thinketh thus truly, 
there is no doubt. Thus said ^^ndilya.'' 

A new centre of all thought is found, a new god, greater 
than all old gods, for he is the AH; nearer to the quest of 



ATilAX ASD BIUUMA WENUCAL. 



3L 



man'a heart, for he is the particular ego. The name of the 
thinter who waa the first to proponnd this new philosophy, tvq 
know not;* the circle of people in which it found response 
mnst have been at that time very narrow. But they were tho 
most enlightened of the Indian people, and, we soo how for 
them all other thoughts fade, and all other quests are merged 
in the one quest, the quest of the Atmau, the foundation of 
things. The parting words of the wise man, who leaves his 
liome and speaks for the last time with his wife, have reference 
to the Atman. The debates of the Brahmans, who como 
together at the gorgeous sacrificial solemnities at tho courts of 
kings, deal with the Atman. Many a Kvely description has 
come down to us, showing how Brahmans eager for the fray, 
and Brahman females not less eager for the contest, have 
crossed lances in argument regarding tho Atman. The wise 
Girgi says to Tiij'navalkya, " As an heroic youth fj'om Ktqi or 
Tideha bends his unbent bow, and takes two deadly arrows iu 
his hand, I have armod myself against thee with two questions, 
which solve for me." And another of those opponents, whom 
the legend of the "Brahmana of the hundred paths" represents 
as confronting Yajnayalkya in this great tournament of debate, 
and as being conquered by him, says to him, "When anyone 
says 'that is an ox, that is a horse," it is thereby pointed out. 

• The names of the teaciiers in whose mouths our teits put the 
diacCFUwes regarding the Atmaa cannot be rcgardeii otlicrwise than with 
distrust. In the " ^atapatha Br." YajnavaUtj-H appears aa the ono who has 
moBt BHPEC'SBfnlly advocated the new doctrines at the court of the Tideha 
king. Sut while the first hoolcs of the said text, whicli must Lave been 
compiled at a not inconsiderablo length of time before the development 
of these speculations, frequently quote TiLjnavalkja as an authority, the 
rSle which he plays in the later booltB must be a fabrication. The 
traditions, which give ^ilndilja a similar place in the history of Indian 
tbODght, are hardly deserving of f,Teater credence. 



32 THE ABSOLUTE AND THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 

Point out to me the revealed, unveiled Brahma, the Atman, 
which dwells in everything: the Atman, which dwells in 
everything, what is that, Y&jnavalkya ? '' Thus the com- 
batants commence, and the princes listen to the debate, to see 
which has the deeper knowledge of the Brahma ; and he who 
conquers in the fight gains the Brahmani cows, with horns 
hung with gold. And side by side with these highly-coloured 
court scenes, where renowned masters from all lands, who have 
knowledge of the Atman, contend with each other for fame, 
patronage, and reward, the same text gives us another very 
diflferent picture : " Knowing him, the Atman, Brahmans 
relinquish the desire for posterity, the desire for possessions, 
the desire for worldly prosperity, and go forth as mendicants/* 
This is the earliest trace of Indian monasticism; from those 
Brahmans who, knowing the Atman, renounce all that is 
earthly, and become beggars, the historical development 
progresses in a regular line up to Buddha, who leaves kith and 
kin, and goods and chattels, to seek deliverance, wandering 
homeless in the yellow garb of a monk. The appearance of 
the doctrine of the eternal One and the origin of monastic life 
in India, are simultaneous; they are -two issues of the same 
important occurrence. 



The Absolute and the External Woeld. 

We must more closely examine the various meanings attached 
by the Indian mind to the idea of the Atman, the Brahma, alone 
and in its connection with the material world, for it is in and 
by these thoughts that those tendencies, which have given to 
the Buddhist world its characteristic stamp, were, at first 
imperceptibly but subsequently more decidedly, developed. 



TEE PROFESSORS OF TEE ATMAN FA11E. 



83 



Tte doctrines o£ the Brabmana regarding tlio Atman do not 
form a system : their mind Iiasj it ia true, the coarage and 
Btrength for a gi-eat venture ; but how could it, in tho excite- 
ment of this creation, preaervo at the same time the cool 
equanimity, neeeaaary for arranging and harmonizing ita 
creation ? While the mind ia ever aeekiug new paths, ever 
making new comparisona, which shall explain tho enigma of 
ths Atman ; wlule, no matter whether mau'a inquiry ha aa to 
the remote past of tho world's beginning, or aa to the future 
f the human soul in a world to come, tho first and last word 
is invai'iably the Atman, who can be astonished if often, in the 
Bccomolated masses of these notions, the most in-econcilablo 
SiEFerencea remained in iuxtapoaition, probably without their 
nherent contradictions having been even noticed? 

I shall now abstract from one of the most important 
nonuraents which have come down to ua from those times, 
irom the concluding sections of tho " Brflhmana of tho hundred 
latks," a passage which seems to be connected with the first 
ude efforts of speculation regarding the Atman. If the being 
prho created tho woilds out of himself, liere also bears that 
name, which later times have given him, Atman, ono may well 
(e tempted to believe that the thoughta themselves with their 
intiqae and crude stamp belong to the preceding age, 

" The Atman," it says, " existed in the beginning, in a 
spirit form ; ho looked round him and aaw nothing else but 
bimaelf ; he spote the first word : ' I am ;' henco cornea the 
me ' I ;' therefore even now also, whoever is addressed by 
mother, says first : 'It is I,' and then he names the other name 
irhich ho bears. . . . Ho was afraid ; therefore whoever ia 
Jone ia afraid. Then he thought : ' There is nothing else but 
j of what then am I afraid V So his fear vaniahed. Of what 
d he to he afraid ? Man experiences fear of another. But he 



31 THE ABSOLUTE ASD TEE EXTERNAL WORLD. 

did not feel content ; therefore whoever is alone does not feel 
content. He desired another. He combined in himself the 
natures of female and male which are locked in each other's 
embrace. He divided this nature of bis into two parts : by 
this came husband and wife ; therefore each of us aUke, la a 
half, says Yiljnavalkya ; therefore is this void (of a man's 
nature) filled up by the woman. He joined himself to her ; 
thus were men born." 

It is. then further narrated, how the two halves of the 
creating Atman, as aire and dam, assume all animiil forms after 
tho human, and produce tho animal kingdom, and how then 
the Atman produces from himself fire and moisture, or the 
divinities Agni and Soma. " This is Brahma's creation 
superior to himself. Inasmuch as he has created gods greater 
than he himself is, inasmuch as he, a mortal, has created 
immortals, therefore it is a creating of the superior to himself. 
Whosoever has this knowledgOj finds his place in thisj his 
auperiop creation." 

As the foregoing text may apparently resemble those ancient 
cosmogonies which begin : "In the beginning was Praj^pati" 
— so, internally also, this na'ioe conception of the highest being 
— or of tho original being, for it is not the highest yet — 
scarcely differs from that which a preceding age had conceived 
in Praj&pati, the creator and rider of the world. The Atman 
here resembles a powerful first man more than a god, not to 
say the one great beent, in whom all other being lives and 
moves. This Atman is afraid in his loneliness, like a man; 
he feels desire, like a man; he begets and brings forth like 
human beings. It is true, gods are among hia creatures, bat 
these creatures aro higher than the creator ; creating greater 
than himself, he, a mortal, produces from himself immortal 
deities. 



eabui:r and later forms of tee Jthan idea. 35 

Side by side with this cosmogony we place otter fragments 
of tte same text, which are of an age probably not much later 
than the passage quoted. 

T4jnavalkya, the renowned Brahman, is about to leave his 
home, to wander as a mendicant. He divides hia property 
between hia two wires. Then his wife Maitreyi says to him as 
he is departing, " If my property included the whole earth, 
wonld I therefore be immortal ?" He replies, " Thy life 
wonld be like the life of the rich : but of immortality riches 
bring no hope." She says, " IE I cannot be immortal, what 
use is all this to me ? Tell me, exalted one, whatever thou 
knowest." And he addresses her regarding the Atman. 

"As when the drum is beaten, a man cannot prevent its 
BOtuid going forth, but if ho seize the drum or the drummer, 
the sound is stayed; — as when the lute is played, a man cannot 
prevent its sound going forth, but if he seize tho lute or the 
late-player, the sound ia stayed; — as when the trumpet is 
blown, a man cannot prevent its sound going forth, but if he 
seize the trumpet or the trumpeter, the sound is stayed ; — as 
from a fire, in which a man places damp wood, clouds of smoke 
issue here and there, so truly is the exhalation of this gi-eat 
being; he is Rig Veda, he is YajurVoda, he is SfUnaVeda, 
the Atharvau and Angiras songs, tale and legend, knowledge 
and sacred doctrine, verses, rules, he is the explanation and 
the second explanation ; all this is his exhalation. — As a lump 
of salt, which is thrown into the water, dissolves and cannot be 
gathered up again, but wherever water is drawn, it ia salty,? ^n 
BO truly it is with this great being, the endless, the u nl i m ited, 
fulness of knowledge: from these (earthly) beings it 
came into view and with them it vanishes. There is no 
consciousness after death; hearten, thus I declare unto Hhee." 
TLns spoke Yfijnavalkya, Then Maitreyi said, ".This speech 



36 THE ABSOLUTE AND THE EXTERNAL WOBLD. 

of thine, exalted one, perplexea me; there is no consciousness 
after death.^' Then said Tajnavalkya, " I tell thee nothing 
perplexing j it ia quite comprehensible ; where there is a 
duality of existences, one can see the other, one can smell the 
other, one can apeak to the other, one can hear the other, one 
can think of tho other, one can apprehend the other. But 
where for each everything has turned into his ego (the Atman), 
hj whom and whom shall he see, by whom and whom shall he 
smell, by whom and to whom shall he speak, by whom and 
whom shall he hear, think and apprehend ? By whom shall he 
apprehend him throngh whom he apprehends this nniversa ? 
Through whom shall ho apprehend him, the apprehender ?" 

This 13 the farewell conversation of Yfijnavalkya with hia wife. 
Between this and those cosmogonic speculations, which we 
have already described, there lies a development of thought, 
which is not mucjilesa than a revolution. There ia tho Atman, 
who is afraid, who soliloquizes, who experiences desire, who can 
be compared with hia creatures, as to whether he or they be ths 
greater, and who must fall back behind the highest of hia 
creatures. Here is the Atman, who is free from all limits of 
personal, human-like existence. Can there, man now inquires, 
be perccptionj thought, consciousness, in the Universe-Being ! 
No, for all perception rests upon a duality, on the opposition 
of subject and object. In the external world with its unlimited 
plurahty there is everywhere a field for this opposition, but 
in the absolutely existent all plurahty ceases, and with it 
necessarily all perception, and all consciousness, which have 
*heir origin in a plurality. The Atman is not blind and deaf — 
he is on the contraiy the one great seer and hearer, who doea 
all the seeing and hearing in tho external world — but in his 
own domain he sees not and hears not, for in the unity, which 
there prevails, the opposition of seeing and seen, of hearing 



PLURALITY AND VmTT. 37 

and heard, is removed. Like the nlfcimate Bnpreme Oeo of the 
Neoplatonics, wlucli cannot be regarded as intellect nor yet as 
intelligible, bnt transcends the reason {vTrep^ffirjich^ ri/u noO 
tj>vtriv), the Atman also, as these farewell worda of Tftinavalkya 
represent him, transcends the personal, is the root of all 
personality, the comprehoasiye falnesa o£ all those powers, in 
which personal Ufa finds its termination : bat these powers 
come into operation only in this phenomenal world, not in the 
domain of the everlasting One, the everlasting unchangeable 
itself. 

The one beent is neither great nor small, neither long nor 
Bhort, neither hidden nor revealed, neither within nor without ; 
the " No, No " is his name, inasmuch aa he cannot ho com- 
prehended by any epithets, and yet his representative is the 
Byllftblo of affirmation, Om ;* lie is the ens realissimwm. 

There yet remained for Indian speculation the task o£ finding 
its way back from this ultimate ground of all being to the 
empirical state of being, to define the relation whioh subsists 
between the Atman and the external world, la the external 
world something separate, side by side with the Atmau ; such 
that, apart from that which the Atman is or works iu it, some- 
thing else, howsoever it have to be apprehended, may yet bo 
left, which is not Atman ? or is the world of plurality absolved 
without residuum in the Atman ? 

It was necessary to approach this question in some form, 
more or less definite, as soon as men came to speak at all of 
the Atman and the material world ; but the question is hinted 
at by the Indian thinkers of these ancient times, rather than 
pat directly or point blank. In their estimation, this alone is 



• In Sanscrit the same cipresgion (eltara akaliaram) lias the s 
double meaning, " the odo imperishable," samolj, the Atmaa ; ead " 
au irfllable," namely, the Om. 



33 rm: ASSOiuTi: and the exteenal world. 

of all things most important, that the Atman may be recog- 
nized as the solo source of life in all that lives, and as the 
thread in which all plurality finda its unity; but where the 
attempt is made to show how the problem of the co-exiatence 
of that plnrality and this unity, or of their existence in each 
other, finda a solution, they speak in the vague language of 
similea and symbols, rather than in expressions which admit of 
their aigniGcation being sharply defined. 

The Atman, thoy say, pervades things, as the salt, which has 
dissolved in water, pervades the water; from the Atman things 
spring, as the sparks fly out from the fire, as threads from the 
spider, as the sound comes from the fluto or the drum. "Aa 
all the spokes are united together in the nave and the felly of 
a wheel, so in this Atman are united all breath-powers, all 
worlds, all gods, all beings, all these ego-itiea." 

There is great danger, in interpreting such similes, of not 
keeping within the faint line which separates that which it 
was intended they should convey and that which lies in them 
beyond this, accidentally and unintentionally; yet he who 
would avoid this danger altogether must simply forbear to lift 
the veil which lies over the Indian world of thought, shronded 
in types and symbols. And we, for our part, think we can 
detect behind these similitudes, by which men strove to bnng 
the living power of the Atman in the universe near to hift 
understanding, a, conviction, though at the same time but a 
half-conscious conviction, of the existence of an element in 
things separate from the Atman. The Atman, says the Indian, 
pervades the universe, as the salt the water in which it has 
dissolved; hut we may eaaUy go on to add, aa a complement to 
this, although no drop of the salt water is without salt, the 
water continues, notwithstanding, to be something separately 
constituted from the salt. The spokes of the wheel are alt 
ftted into the nave and the felly, and fastened in, and still the 



THE No:f-Eao. 



33 



■ spoke is Boraetliiiig which the nave and the felly are not. And 
thus we may infer, the Atman is to tlie Indian certainly the 
BoTe actuality, light-diffusing, the only significant reality in 
things ; but there is a remainder left in things, which he ia 
not. " He who dwells in the earth," it is said of the Atman, 

■' being within the earth, whom the earth knowa not, whose 
body ia the earth, who operates within the earth, that is the 
Atman, the in-dwelling ruler, the immortal. He who dwells in 
the water, who dwells in the fire, who dwells in the eether, who 

■ dwells in tho wind, who dwells in the sun, moon, and stars, 
who dwells in space, who dwells in lightning and thunder, who 
dwells in all worlds, who is illatent in all Vedas, all offerings, 
all beings, whom all beings know not, whose body all beings 
are, who operates within all beings, that is the Atman, the 
in-dwelling raler, the immortal." And in another part of 
the same dialogue, from which these propositions have been 
excerpted: "by the command of this unchangeable being 
heaven and earth stand fastj by the command of this 
unchangeable being snn and moon stand fast, days and nights, 
half months and months, seasons and years stand fast ; by the 
command of this unchangeable being some rivers flow from tho 
Bnowy mountains to the east, and others to the west and other 
iwints of the heavens ; by the command of this unchangeable 
being men commend the giver, the gods the offeror, and the 
libation made with the spoon is the proper part belonging to 
the Manes." 

Though thus varied is the garb in which thought wraps itself 
in all these expressions, yet it is always the same, viz., that the 
Atman, as the sole directing power, is in all that lives and 
moves, but that the world of creatures operated on stands side 
by side with tho directing power, pervaded by hia energy, and 
yet separate from him. 



40 TEE ABSOLUTE AND THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 

Thongli here and there^ by all means^ the language seems 
more free, and expressions are found which convey a hint that 
the Atman is everything which lives and moves, yet, I take it, 
the contradiction lies more in the words employed than in the 
thought. Is it not allowable, for the bold language in which 
these hazardous ventures of young thought clothe themselves, 
to say that the Atman is the universe, even where the thought, 
if it were accurately expressed, is only this, that in the universe 
the Atman is the only valuable, the source of all life and all 
light? 

Since, then, there remains in things a residue which is not 
Atman, we ask : in what light was this residue viewed ? whence 
comes it? what significance has it? Naturally comes the 
expectation that it was conceived to be matter, or dark chaos, 
which, formless in itself, receives its form from the Atman, 
the source of forms and light. Our texts have preserved for 
us but few hints on this subject. The knowledge of the 
Atman itself, which was inseparably associated with the ideas 
of the deliverance of the spirit from the domain of sorrow- 
fraught impermanence, had such unlimited value for the Indian, 
that the other side of the problem receded in speculative 
importance before it in.to the background. But where 
utterances bearing on these questions are found, they do 
actually point to the notion of a chaos, a world of potentialities, 
from which the operation of the Atman produces realities. 
The beenty that was in the beginning alone, Udd&laka thus 
instructs his son,* thought : may I become a plurality. It sent 
forth fire from itself : the fire sent forth water from itself : the 
water produced food. ^^ Then thought this being : let me now 
enter these three beings with this living self and let me then 

• ** Chandogya TTpan.," tI. 2, etc. Similar but much more involved 
is " 5at. Br.," xi. 2, 3. 



THE NON-EGO. 

s." And .it enters witli its breath of 
life into the fire, into the water, and into the food, mixes the 
elements of the one with those of the other, and thus the real 
world is prepared from the three original existeuta by the 
demiurgic operation of the Atman. 

It is clear that those three oldest existents, those original 
creations of the Atman, in which he then reveals name and 
form by his breath of life, are treated before this act of 
revealing as a chaotic something, which is there, but is not as 
yet anything precisely determinate, older than the world of 
things we see, and not eternal hke the Atman, but the Atman's 
first creation. But these attempts to demonsti'ato what in 
things is matter, bear very perceptibly tho marks of immaturity. 
One would expect to find in the chaos, before the breath of life 
of the deminrgus produces in it " name and form," a nameless 
«id formless, an absolute, indeterminate something, and yet it 
is in the very begiming organic, of the threefold nature, of fire, 
■water, and food, and thus it has thereby originally in itself an 
element of distinctness and nomination. And similarily, on 
■the other hand, is the Atman, the creator and vivilier of the 
chaotic, less firmly maintained in that paramount position 
resnltifig from the abstraction which we found attained in tho 
farewell discourse of YSjnavalkya. It is not the simple One, 
from whose nature, for his unity's sake, all reflection and pro- 
jection must be excluded, as involving the duaUty of subject 
and object ; he thinks, and this, indeed, is his thought : may 
1 become a plurality. Those thinkers who have pursued tho 
idea of the nnity in the nature of the Atman to its ultimate 
consequence, would scarcely have ventured to attempt, in the 
entered upon here, a solution of tho problem of matter 
and ita evolution from the Atman ; it is surely no mere accident 
that those passages in oar texts also, which accentuate those 



42 PESSIMISM, METEMPSrCEOSIS, DELIVERANCE. 

consequences with the most marked emphasis^ are silent on 
these problems: men may have felt that thought had here 
reached a chasm, over which to throw a bridge was not in 
their power. 

Pessimism, Metempsychosis, Deliveeance. 

This is the place in which to speak of the inferences which 

the speculation of the Indians drew from the doctrine of the 

» 

universal One side by side with and in the world of plurality, 
bearing on the estimate of the value of the world, life and 
death, and the ethical questions so closely connected therewith. 

We stand here at the birthplace of Indian pessimism. 

When thought, liberal to itself, had laden the idea of the 
Atman with all attributes of every perfection, of absolute 
unity, of unlimited fulness, the world of plurality, measured 
by the standard of the everlasting One, must have necessarily 
appeared a state of disruption, restriction and pain. The 
unconstrained feeling of being at home in this world is 
destroyed at one stroke, as soon as thought has weighed it 
against its ideal of the supreme One, and found it wanting, 
and thus the glorification of the Atman becomes involuntarily 
an ever increasingly bitter criticism of this world. If the 
Atman be commended " who is fer above hunger and thirst, 
above sorrow and confusion, above old age and death,^' who is 
there who does not detect in such words a reflection, though it 
be not openly expressed, on the world of the creature, in which 
hunger and thirst, sorrow and confusion are at home, and 
in which men grow old and die ? " The unseen seer,'' thus 
Y&jnavalkya speaks to Uddfllaka, ''the unheard hearer, the 
unthought thinker, the unknown knower j there is no other 
seer, no other hearer, no other thinker, no other knower. 
That is thy Atman, the mover within, the immortal; whatever 



THE BVDIMESTS OF PESSUIISSl. 



43 



besides Min, is full of sorrow." — And ib is said on another 
occasion : " as the sun, the eye of the universe, remains far ofE 
Bud nnafEected by all sickness that meets the (hnman) eye, so 
also the One, the Atman, who dwells in all creatures, dwells 
afar and untonchod by the sorrows of the world," Here 
occnrs for the first time the expression " Sorrow of the world." 
That the One, the happy Atman, has chosen to manifest him- 
self in the world of plurality, of becoming and decease, was 
misfortune : this is not openly stated, for men are shy of a 
thonght, which would trace to the happy One Being the roots 
of the sorrow of earth or even any fault, but they cannot have 
been very for from this thought when they proposed to man as 
the highest aim of his effort, the undoing in his case of this 
manifestation, and the finding for himself a return from the 
plorah'ty to the One, 

The place which Indian speculation allots to man, in and 
between the two worlds of the happy Atman and the sorrowful 
state of the present life, is intimately connected with the 
conceptions of metempsychosis, the first traces of which appear 
in the Vedic texts not long before the doctrine of the ever- 
lasting One comes to the surface. 

The thought that new wanderings, new repetitions of death 
and re-birth await the soul after death, are wholly foreign to 
the ancient times in which the hymns of the Eig Veda are 
Bong. Men can talk of the habitations of the happy, where in 
Tama's kingdom those who have trodden the dark way of 
death enjoy everlasting pleasures — 

"Where joy and pleasure and gladness 
And rapture dwell, where the wish 
Of the wisher finds fulfilment '' 

and men speak also of the deep places of darkness, and of the 
horrors which await the evil-doer in the world to come. But 



44 PESSIMISM, METEMPSTCH08IB, DEUVEBANOE. 

men have no other thought but the one^ that on the entry into 
the world of the blessed^ or into the world of everlasting 
darkness^ destiny is for ever fixed. 

We have shown how the age which followed the period of 
the Eig Veda created a new scheme of the universe. On all 
sides men descried gloomy formless powers^ either openly 
displayed or veiled in mysterious symbols, contending with 
each other, and, like harassing enemies, preparing contretemps 
for human destiny. The tyranny of death also is enhanced in 
the estimation of the dismal mystic of this age ; the power of 
death over men is not spent with the one blow which he inflicts. 
It soon comes to be averred that his power over him, who is 
not wise enougK to save himself by the use of the right words 
and the right offerings, extends even into the world beyond, 
and death cuts short his life yonder again and again ; we soon 
meet the conception of a multiplicity of death-powers, of whom 
some pursue men in the worlds on this side, and others in the 
worlds beyond. '^ Whoever passes into that world without 
having made himself free from death, will become in that world 
again and again the prey of death, in the same way that death 
shows no respect in this world and kills him when ho wills.'^ 
And in another place, "Through all worlds truly death's 
powers have dominion; if he offered to these no libations, 
death would pursue him from world to world — if he offers 
libations to the powers of death, he repels death through world 
after world.''* 

• We must refrain from asking the question, whether the inflti^ences of 
the belief of non- Aryan peoples in India have had any share in the origin 
of this idea of new existences and recurrences of the fate of death. This 
idea is quite capable of explanation, if we regard it as the outcome of the 
progressive course which the thought or imagination of the Brahmans has 
taken, entirely independent of the co-operation of extraneous impulses, 
the existence of which is as incapable of proof as of disproof. 



METEMPSTCnOSIS. 

In tlie texts o£ tlio times, in which these plays of a cheerless 
fancy first appear, there is little said of the idea of re-birth, or, 
as it first meets us in characteristic form, of that of re-dying. 
And yet the influence, which these ideas must have had on 
the aspirations of religious life, cannot liave been small. The 
spirit can bear the thought of a decision of its destiny once for 
all, detei-mined for all eternity; but the endless migration from, 
world to world, from existence to existence, the endlessness of 
the strnggle against the pallid power of that ever-recurring 
destruction — a thought like this might well fill the heart even 
of the brave with a shudder at the resultlessness of all this 
nnending course of things. When other associations directed 
i thought to the opposition of a happy world of unity, of 
st, to a second world of plurality, of change, the appalling 
prospect of re-birth — that is, of re-death — will have had no 
BiqeUI share in causing men to paint the domain of plurality ui 
3 dark colours, as unhappy and desolated by sorrow. 
But a thought such as that of more and still more deaths, 
irhich await the mortal in future forms of being, cannot be 
nitertamed without evoking its complement — or, we should 
rather say, perhaps, its neutralizer — the thought of tho 
leliverance from death : without this the end wonld be 
lespair. From tho beginning, therefore, the idea of metem- 
IByohosia was not so conceived, as though there were in it an 
mavoidable fatality, to which every human lifo is subject 
trithout hope of escape. At the same time, with tho belief in 
he tranemig ration of the soul, and as its necessary com- 
oment, the conception is formed that from the limitless 
mge of birth and death a way out stands open ; the thought 
d the word "deUvenmce" are now ready to step into the 
regroond of reUgiouB life. 
The phases, both of style and matter, through which 



46 PESSIMISM, METEMFSYCHOSm, DELIVERANCE. 

Brahmanical thought passes at thia timej ia rapid succeBsion, 
are reflected successively in the way in which the thought of 
deliverance ia embodied. 

So long as the way out of that confused maze of grotesque 
and formless Bymbolical conceptions to the idea of the Atraan, 
the universal One, had not been found, the notions of deliver- 
ance also bear the same stamp of an arbitrary fantastic 
externality, which is characteristic of the spiritual creations of 
that age. The offering, the great fundamental power, and the 
fundamental symbol of all being and of all procession of being, 
is also the power by which man bursts the bands of death; 
and next to the offering itself, the sacred knowledge of the 
eacrificial rites has the power to set free. Above all, the daily 
offering to the two luminaries of the day and the night : the 
morning offering to the sun, and the evening offering to Agni, 
the sun of the niglit, both accompanied by a silently-performed 
offering to Prajapati, the lord of the created. In the Biin 
dwells death ; the sun's rays are the cords by which death has 
power to draw man's life-breath to himself. "If in tie 
evening, after sunset, he makes the two offerings, he takes 
his stand with the two fore-quarters (of his being) in that 
death's power {i.e., in the sun) ; if in the morning, before 
Bonrise, he makes the two offerings, he takes hia stand with 
the two hind-quarters {of his being) in that death's power. 
When he rises, then, he bears him with him aa he rises ; thus 
he delivers himaelf from that death. This is the deliverance 
from death which ia inherent in the Agnihotra offering. He 
dehvera himself from the recurrence of death who thus nndeiv 
stands thia deliverance from death in the Agnihotra." And in 
another place, " Those who have this knowledge, and perform 
this offering, will after death be born again; they will be bom 
again to die no more. But those who have not this knowledge. 




irETEMPSYC30SIS AKD THE ABSOLUTE. 47 

OP do not perform ttia offering, will after]|death be bom again, 
and will become the prey of death anew, over and over again 
for ever," 

These are the earliest appearances of the belief in the trans- 
migration of aonla and the deliverance from death, dressed in 
fanciful miraculoua shapes. When these thoughts came to the 
front, events were in process which were to give a new aspect 
1 the Brahmanical world of ideas; at that very time specu- 
tion directed itself to detect in the Atman, or the Brahma, the 
iverlaating, imperishable Being, the source (of every state of 
Bsdstence, the unity resting at the back ofJIall plurality. As 
I as this step was taken, a gronnd was gained on which 
-ihoae thoughts of death and dchvorance conld he planted ont, 
and from which they conld derive" new intrinsic value. The 
different elements of speculation of themselves here fitted 
together into a whole which left no joinings to be seen. On 
the one sido a duahsm — tho cV6rlaBting]|Brahma, the ground 
of all being, the true nature also of the human spirit (Brahma 
=Atman), and opposed to him tho world of becoming and of 
decease, of sorrow and of death. On the other side a si mi l a r 
Opposition — the undelivered soul, which death holds in his 
^nds, and ever anew hurries from one state of being into 
mother, and the delivered soul, which has overcome death, 
1 attained the goal of wayfarers. The result of the union 
of the two trains of thought could only be this : the wandering 
i*f the soul through the domains of death is the fruit of its 
pon-union with the Brahma: the deliverance is the attained 
aity of the soul with its true mode' of being, the Brahma, 
D'mty there ia not, as long as the human soul conducts itself 
in thought and will as a citizen of tho world of plurality ; so 
long does it remain subject to the law which operates in this 
world, tho law of origination and decease, of birth and death. 



48 PESSIMISM, METEMP8TCE0BIS, DELIVERANCE. 

Bat where tlie look and longing fixed on plurality have been 
vanquished^ the soul^ fi^ed from the dominion of deaths returns 
to the home of all life, to the Brahma. " As a weaver," says 
the Brahmana of the hundred paths, ^^ takes away a piece of a 
many-coloured cloth and weaves another, new, more beautiful 
pattern^ so also the spirit (in death) shuffles off this body, and 
allows consciousness to be extinguished, and takes upon itself 
another, new form, of Manes or Grandharvas, of Brahma's 
or Praj&pati's nature, of divine or human or other manner of 

being As he acted and as he walked, so he 

becomes: he who does good becomes a good being, he who 
does bad a bad ; he becomes pure by pure action, evil by evil 

action So with him who is in the net of desire. 

But he who desires not ? He who is without desire, who is 
free from desire, who desires the Atman only, who has attained 
his desire, from his body the breath-powers do not escape (into 
another body), but here draw themselves together; he is the 
Brahma, and he goes to the Brahma. The following couplet 
speaks of this : — 

* When he has set himself free from every desire of his heart. 
The mortal enters immortal into the Brahma here below.' " 

Desire (kdma) and action (karman) are here named as 
the powers which hold the spirit bound within the limits 
of impermanence. ;^ Both are essentially the same. ^' Man's 
nature,'' it is said in the same treatise from which we have 
taken the passage quoted, '' depends on desire. As his desire^ 
so is his aspiration ; as his aspiration, so is the course of action 
(karman) which he pursues j whatever be the course of action 
he pursues, he passes to a corresponding state of being." 

The form in which the idea of a moral retribution here 
appears, and in which, through long ages, it has constituted 
a fundamental principle of religious thought, with Buddhists 



MORAL BETRIBUTIOli— DESIRE. 



iO 



I well as tniih Brahmansj is the doctrine of the karman 
(action) as the power which pre-determines the course o£ the 
migratioii of the sotiI from one state of being to another. Our 
sonrces of information show ns that this new doctrine did not 
at first meet with general acceptance among the circles of 
philoaophizing Brahmana ; whoever knows it, has the feeKng of 
sessing in it a mysterious secret, of which one should apeak 
only covertly and in private. So in the great debate, of which 
the Br^mana of the hundred paths gives an account, among 
the opponents who seek to ti-ip up the wise Yfijnavalkya with 
their questions, JSratkS.rava Artabhiiga comes forward. He 
puts a question : " Tajnavalkya, when man dies, his voice goea 
into the fire, his breath into the wind, his eye to the Bun, his 
thought to the moon, his ear to the quarters of heaven, his 
"body to earth, his personality to the iether, his hairs to the 
plants, the bail- of his head to the trees; his blood and his 
semen find a place in the waters. But where, then, remains 
the man himself ? " " Give me thy hand, my friend," is the 
answer. "ArtabhSga! we two alone must be privy to this; 
not a word on that subject where people are listening." "And 
they two went out and conversed together. What they then 
said, they said regarding action (karman) ; and what they 
then propounded, they propounded regarding action : by pure 
Action man becomes pure (fortunate), by evil action evil 
(unfortunate) ." 

But no action ctm lead into the world of deliverance and 
liappiness. Even good action is something which remains 
confined to the sphere of the impermanent; it receives its 
reward, but the reward of the impermanent can only be an 
impermanent one. The everlasting Atman is highly exalted 
aUke above reward and effort, above holiness and unholiucss. 
" He, the immortal, is beyond both, beyond good and evil ; 



50 PESSIMISM, METEMPSYCHOSIS, DELIVERANCE. 

what is done and what is left undone^ cause him no pain ; his 
domain is aflTected by no action/' Thus, action and the being 
delivered are two things, quite separate from each other; the 
dualism of impermanonce and permanence, which influences all 
thought in this age, here imposes from the first on the idea 
of deliverance, and on the ethical postulates which flow from 
it, this negative character: morality is not a form of active 
participation in the world, but a complete severance of self 
from the world. 

The felicity of the perfection which has divested itself of all 
action and dealing, good and evil, has its prefiguration and 
illustration in the state of the deepest sleep, when the world, 
which surrounds the mind in its waking hours, has vanished 
from its view, and not even a dream is seen ; when it sleeps 
'^ like a child, or like a great sage, when ho, wrapt in sleep, feels 
no desire and sees no vision, that is the condition in which he 
desires only the Atman, when he has attained his desire, when 
he is without desire/' 

The succeeding age turned, with a special predilection, to 

the description of conditions of the deepest self-contained 

abstraction, in which perception and feeling, space and all 

objectivity, vanished from the mind, and it hangs, as it were, 

in the middle, between the transient world and the Nirv&na. 

Disquisitions on these ecstasies of contemplation are among 

the pet themes of the discourses which the Buddhist Church 

have put in their master's mouth. "We shall not be wrong if 

we here recognize the preliminary traces of these ideas. When 

man seeks for an earthly prefiguration of the return to the 

universal One, he must, before he lights upon those sickly 

conditions of semi- or complete unconsciousness, picture to 

himself the rest of deep, dreamless sleep as the most natural 

and readiest image. 



laSOItANCE AND KNOWLEDQE. 



51 



Up to this point we have found the oppoaitiou of the 
delivered and undelivered associated with the opposition of 
'desire and non-deaire. The same thought is often expressed, 
■with a slight alteration of such a turn that, instead of desire, 
inowledgo and ahsence of knowledge are set up as the deter- 
minatora of the ultimate destiny of the soul ; the knowledge, 
on the one hand, of the unity, to wMch the individual ego and 
all beings draw together in Brahma ; and, on the other hand, 
the being absorbed in the contemplation of the finite as a 
plurality. "Where all beings have become one's self, for the 
hnowing how can there be delusion — how can there be pain 
for bim who has hia eye on the unity ? " " He who has 
discovered and understood (pratibuddha) the Atman dwelhng 
in the darkness of this corporeity, he is all-creating, for he is 
the creator of the nniverae : his is the world, he is himself the 
world. They who know the breath of the breath, and the eye 
of the eye, the ear of the ear, the food of food, the thought of 
thought, they have comprehended the Brahma, the ancient, the 
BTipreme, attainable by thought alone ; there is not in it any 
diversity. He attains the death of death who here detects 
any diversity ; thought alone can behold it, this Impei'iahable, 
Everlasting." 

If then deliverance be based at one time on the conquest of 
all desire, and at another on the knowledge of the Brahma, 
both may be regarded merely as the expression of one and the 
same thought. "If a man knows the Atman :+ 'that ami 
myself' — wishing what, for the sake of what desire, should ho 
cling to the bodily state ?" The main thing ia knowledge ; if 
it be obtained, all desire vanishes of itself. In other words, 
the deepest root of the clinging to the impermanent, is the 
absence of knowledge. 

* These worda also me&a: " If a man knows himself." 
4* 



62 PESSIJOSM, UETEMP8TCH08I8, DEUVEEASCE. 

Ilcro we stand wboUy in ibose very ranges of thonglit 
with which Baddha's teaching dealt. The qaestion^ which has 
snggested the Buddhist views on deliverance, is here already 
pat exactly in the same form as afterwards, and the same two- 
fold answer is given to this question. What keeps the soul 
bound in the cycle of birth^ death, and re-birth ? Buddhism 
answers : desire and ignorance. Of the two, the greater evil is 
ignorance, the first link in the long chain of causes and effects, 
in which the sorrow-working destiny of the world is fulfilled. 
Ts knowledge attained, then is all suffering at an end. Under 
the tree of knowledge, Buddha, when he has obtained the 
Imowledge that gives deliverance, utters these words : 

" When the conditions (of existence) reveal themselves 
To the ardent, contemplating Brahman, 
To earth he casts the tempter's hosts. 
Like the sun, diffusing light through the air." 

Here Brahmanical speculation anticipates Buddhism in diction 
as well as in thought. Language even now begins to make 
use of those phrases, which have received at a later time from 
the lips of Buddha's followers, their established currency as an 
expression of the tenets of the Buddhist faith. When he who 
has come to know the Atman, is mentioned in the " Brfthmana 
of the hundred paths,'' as delivered, the word then used for 
^'knowing" is that word (pratibuddha) which also signifies 
^' awaking," the word which the Buddhists are accustomed to 
use, when they describe how Buddha has in a solemn hour 
under the A5vattha tree gained the knowledge of the delivering 
truth, or is awake to the delivering truth : the same word from 
which also the name '^ Buddha," i.e., *^the knowing," ''the 
awake," is derived. 

Of all the texts in which the Brahmanical speculations as to 
the delivering power of knowledge are contained, perhaps not 



THE TONE OF EELIQIOUS LIFE. 



53 



even one waa known except by hearsay to the founder of 
the Bnddhist community of believers. But, for all that, 
it )3 certain that Buddhism has acquired as an inheritance 
from BrahmaQism, not merely a series of its most important 
dogmaSj bat, what is not less significant to the historian, tha 
bent of its religious thought and feeling, which is more eaBily 
comprehended than expressed in words. 

If in Baddhism the proud attempt be made to conceive a 
deliverance in which man himself delivers himself, to create a 
faith without a god, it is Brahmanical speculation which has 
prepared the way for this thought. It has thrust back the idea 
of a god step by step ; the forma of the old gods have faded 
away, and besides the Brahma, which ia enthroned in its 
everlasting quietude, highly exalted above the destinies of tbe 
tnman world, there is left remaining, as the sole really active 
person in the great work of deliverance, man himself, who 
possesses inherent in himself the power to turn aside from this 
world, this hopeless state of sorrow. 

Every people makes for itself gods after its own ideal, and 
is not less made what it actually is by the reflex influence of 
what its gods are. A people with a history make themselves 
gods who shall show their power in their history, who 
shall fight their battles with them, and join in the adminis- 
tration of their state. The god of Israel is the Holy One, 
before whose flaming majesty the heart of man bows in 
adoration and suppHcation, and to whom it draws near in 
prayer as to a father with the confidence of a chdd; whose 
Irrath causes men to disappear, whose tender mercy worketh 
Jod to chUdren, and children's children even unto the 
.ousaudth generation. And the god of tbe Brahmanical 
bought ? Tbe Great One, before whom all human movement is 
[ed, where all colours pale and all sounds expire. No song 



64: Tin? TEMPTER. BRAHMAN. 

of praise, and no petition, no hope, no fear, no love. The gaze 
of man is unmoved, is tamed upon himself and looks into the 
depths of his own being, expecting his ego to disclose itself to 
him as the everlasting One, and the thinker, for whom the veil 
has risen, discovers as an enigma of deep meaning, the mystery 
of the Unseen Seer, the Unheard Hearer, to find out whom 
Brahmans leave goods and chattels, wife and child, and move 
as mendicants, homeless through the world. 



The Tempter. Brahman. 

Tradition enables us to gain but a very imperfect idea of 
how the remaining notions, images, expressions, which passed 
to Buddhism as an inheritance from Brahmanical speculation, 
ranged themselves one after another round the central point of 
the religious thought, with which our sketch has been dealing. 
If we except the oldest, fundamental texts of the doctrine of 
the Atman, from which we have drawn material for our sketch 
up to the present, we are driven to conjectures of the most 
uncertain kind, when we ask what works may be received as 
pre-Buddhist and what not. Internal evidence, on which alone 
we are thrown in this case, is sufficient in very few instances 
to render it possible to form even a probable estimate, as to 
whether what is connected in these texts in thought or form of 
expression with the Buddhist, belongs to the stages preparatory 
to the Buddhist phase of thought, or has on its part been 
influenced by that phase. I might claim a pre-Buddhist origin 
for the K&thaka Upanishad, a poem which in the rude grandeur 
of its composition reflects all the earnestness and all the 
singularity of that age of self-study. If I am correct in my 
surmise as to the time of the production of this Upanishad, it 



NACJKETA8 AND THE GOD OF DEATH. 55 

contaiiis an important contribution to the history of thought 
preparatory to Buddhist thought : namely^ we here find the 
Satan of the Buddhist worlds M&ra^ the Tempter^ the demon 
death-foe of the deliverer, in the form of Mrityu, the God of 
Death. The identity of the conception is most unmistakably 
apparent notwithstanding the difference of the clothing, and 
indeed the Brahmanical poem has preserved that image, which it 
has in common with the Buddhist legends, in a form assuredly 
far more original. 

'^ U9ant, son of V&jagravas,^^ the Upanishad begins, '^ gave 
away all that he had.* He had one son, named Naciketas. 
In this youth faith was awakened, when the offeringsf were 
being carried away. He then reflected : 

''Water-drinking, grass- eating, milked-out (creatures) whose strength 
is exhausted — 
Cheerless are the worlds called, to which he tends, who offers such 
gifts/'t 

He said to his father : " Father, to whom wilt thou give 
me V And a second and a third time (he asked this). Then 
his father said : '* I give thee to Death.^^ 

The Son. 

*' Many come after me : many have before me trodden the path of 
death. 

_ • 

The Prince of Death, the god Yama, what need can he have of me P" 

The Fatheb. 

** Look forward, look backward ; a like fatality rules here and yonder. 
The destiny of man resembles the grain, which ripens, falls, and 
again returns." 

The poem passes over what now happens : Naciketas 

* He divided these out to the priests as sacrificial remuneration. 

t All his father's gifts, especially cows. 

X The rewards for earthly gifts, such as those cows, are vain. 



m TBETEMPTEB. BRAHMAN. 

descends to the kingdom of Death. Yama^ the God of Deaths 
does not see bim : so lie remains tliree days nnliononred in the 
realms of tlie departed. 

The Ssbtavts of the God of Dbjith. 

A flanuBg fire ib the Brahman who approaches the house as a 
guest. Yams presents water to the guesty thus the heat of the fire is 
aUi^ed. 

** Hope and wish, friendship and erezy joy. 
The fruit of his actions, children and frnitfohiess of the flock. 
These the Brahman takes awaj from the foolish man 
In whose honse he tarries nnfed." 

Yaici. (thb 6oi> 07 Death). 

** Unfed within my house three nights, 
. Brahmana, a worthy guest, hast thou tarried. 

Hononr to thee, let prosperity attend me ; 

Three wishes shall be granted thee ; choose I" 

Naciketas chooses as the first wish^ that his father may receive 
him without ill wiU on his retnm from the realms of the dead; 
as the second^ that the God of Death may teach him the hidden 
knowledge of the sacrificial fire^ by the help of whicli man 
wins the heavenly world. Death imparts to him the mystic 
knowledge of thi^ fire and guarantees that it shall be called 
among men after his name the Naciketas-fire. Naciketas has 
now to express his third wish. 

Naciketas. 
** Inquiry is made regarding the fate of the dead : 
' They are/ says one ; ' they are not/ says another. 
This I wish to know, resolve this (doubt) for me. 
This is the third wish, which I choose." 

The God of Death. 
** The gods themselves sought after this long since ; 
Hard to f athom, dark is this secret. 
Choose some other boon, I^aciketas, 
On this insist not ; release me from my promise." 



•*( 



TEE TEMPTER. 67 

NXCIKETAB. 

From the gods themselyes is tLis hidden, thou sajest ; 
Hard to fathom hast thou, O Death, declared it. 
There is no other who can reveal this to me as thou canst. 
There is no other wish which I can choose instead of this." 

The God of Death. 

" Fulness of years, and children's children. 
Choose gold, herds, elephants, horses. 
Choose widely-extended rule upon the earth, 
Have thy life long as thou desirest. 

If this appear to thee acceptable instead of that other wish. 
Then choose wealth, choose long life ; 
E>ule broad realms, Naciketas ; 
I give thee the fulness of all pleasures. 
What mortal men obtain but with difficulty, 
Choose every pleasure on which thy heart is set. 
Maidens here, with harps, with carriages. 
Fairer than men may hope to gain. 
These give I thee, that they may do thee service ; 
Ask not of death, I^aciketas." 

I^ACIKETAS. 

The lapse of days causes, O Lord of Death, 

The power of the organs of life to fail in the children of men ; 

The whole life swiftly passes away ; 

Song and dance, chariot and horse, thine are they. 

niches cannot give contentment to man ; 

What is wealth to us when we have beheld thee P 

We shall live as long as thou biddest us ; 

Still this wish alone is that which I choose. 

Tell us of the far-reaching future of the world to come. 

Whereon, O Death, man meditates in doubt. 

The wish, which penetrates into hidden depths. 

That alone it is which Naciketas chooses." 



« 



The reluctance of the God of Death is overcome, and he 
grants to the importunate inquirer his request. The two paths 
of knowledge and ignorance diverge widely from each other. 



58 THE TEMPTER. 

Naciketas has chosen knowledge ; the fulness of pleasures has 
not led him astray. They who walk in the path of ignorance, 
endlessly wander about through the world beyond, like the 
blind led by the blind. The wise man who knows the One, 
the Everlasting, the ancient God, who dwells in the depths, has 
no part in joy and sorrow, becomes free from right and wrong, 
free from the present, and free from hereafter. That is Yama's 
answer to Naciketas^s inquiry. 

A strange picture coming from this great period of old 
Indian thought and poetry: the Brahman who descends to 
Hades, and, unmoved by all promises of transient pleasures, 
wrings from the God of Death the secret of that which lies 
beyond death. 

We now turn from this Vedic poem to Buddhist legend. 

Through many a long age, he who is destined to the 
Buddhahbod pursues his quest of the knowledge which is to 
deliver him from death and re-birth. His enemy is M&ra, the 
Evil One. As the god Mrityu promises Naciketas dominion 
over extended realms, if he will forego the knowledge of the 
hereafter, so Mdra offers Buddha the sovereignty of the whole 
earth, if he will renounce his career of Buddha; as Mrityu 
offers Naciketas nymphs of more than earthly beauty, so 
Buddha is tempted by M&ra's daughters, named Desire, 
Unrest, and Pleasure. Naciketas and Buddha alike withstand 
all temptations, and obtain the knowledge which delivers them 
from the hand of death. The name Mara* is no other than 

* Both words signify ** death,'* and are derived from the same root, 
mar, " to die." The mode of expression in many places of the Dhamma- 
pada makes the identity of M^ra and Mrityu (Pali maccu) clearly evident. 
Compare ver. 34, "Mllradheyyam pah&tave/' with ver. 86, "maccudheyyam 
suduttaram ; v. 46 : chetyana M&rassa papupphakani adassanam maccu- 
rajassa gacche." Cf. also ver. 57 with 170. See also " Mah^vagga," I, iL 2. 



J3RAEMAX. 69 

Mrityu; the God of Death is at the aamo time the "Prince 
of this world," the lord of all worldly enjoyment, the foe o£ 
knowledge; for pleasure ia in Brahmanical, as it is in Buddhist 
speculation, the chain which binds to the bondage of death, 
and knowledge is the power which breaks that chain. This 
aspect of the God of Death, aa the tempter to pride and worldly 
pleasures, steps in the Buddhist legend in the shape of MAra 
80 prominently into the foreground that the original character 
of that god thereby almost disappears; the older poem of the 
KAthaka-Upanishad preserves clearly the original nature of 
Mrityu, but it shows ua at the same time in it the point from 
which the conception of the Prince of Death could be trans- 
formed into that of the Tempter. 

Together with Mira, we find in the Buddhist tests very 
frequently mentioned another spiritual being, the conception of 
whom had likewise been first formed in the later Vedic age. 
Brahman. The god Brahman's figure 13 an outcome of that idea 
of the Brahma, the development of which has occupied our 
attention in a previous passage. It is exceedingly characteristic 
of the iofluencc which the most abstract speculation of the 
Bchools exercised in India over the notions of the people 
generally, that the Brahma, tho colourless, formless abaolutum, 
has become an important element in the popular faith; of 
course, not without the thought in its original purity having 
been modified or, more accurately speaking, lost sight of. The 
thing in the abstract would have been rather too unconcrete a 
god even for the Indians. So the neuter personified itself, and 
became mascuhne; the Brahma turned into the god Brahman, 
the "progenitor of all worlds," the first-born among beings. 

We cannot here attempt to give a more detailed picture 
of this peculiar invasion of the popular conscioosness by the 
Epecnlative idea; our Bources of information completely forbid 



60 BEAEMAN. 

it. This mucli only we know with certainty, that the process 
of which we speak had not only completed itself in the age of 
earlier Buddhism^ but that a considerable period mast have 
elapsed since its completion. Scarcely any divine being is 
80 familiar to the imagination of the Buddhists as Brahm& 
Sahampati ; at all important moments in the life of Buddha 
and his f ollowers^ he is wont to leave his Brahma-heaven and 
to appear on earth as the profoundly humble servant of 
holy men. And from this one principal Brahman the Buddhist 
imagination has created whole classes of Brahma-gods, 
who have their place in diflferent Brahma-heavens: — one 
more finger-post in addition to many others, indicating the 
impossibihty of those Vedic texts, in which the origin of the 
doctrine of the universal One is exhibited, coming at all near 
the Buddhist period, in which the god Brahman has already 
developed himself from the Brahma, and the whole system of 
the Brahma-divinities from the god Brahman. 



CHAPTER III 



Asceticism — ^Monastic Oedees. 

Wb now proceed to describe the forms of religious, monastic 
life which have sprang up in close connection with the already 
discussed speculations regarding the universal One and 
deliverance. As in those philosophical ideas the way was 
prepared for the dogmatics of Buddhism, so in those begin- 
nings of monastic life the foundation of the outward forms 
of the Buddhist Church was laid. 

The two lines of development, that of the inner side and 
that of the outer side of religious life, run — how could it be 
otherwise ? — ^in close harmony. 

Those speculations which represented the phenomenal world 
to be unstable and worthless as compared with the world's 
base, the Atman, had at one blow deprived of their value all 
those aims of life which appear important to the natural 
consciousness of ordinary men. Sacrifice and external 
observance are unable to raise the spirit to the Atman, to 
disclose to the individual ego his identity with the universal 
ego. Man must separate himself from all that is earthly, must 
fly from love and hate, from hope and fear; man mhst 
live as though he lived not. The Brahmans, it is said, '' the 
intelligent and wise desire not posterity : what are descendants 



€2 ASCETICI8M-^M0NA8TI0 ORDERS. 

to us^ whose home is the Atman ? They relinquish the desire 
for children, the struggle for wealth, the pursuit of worldly 
weal, and go forth as mendicants/' 

Many content themselves with a less strict renunciation; 
they go forth, it is true, from their houses, and give up 
their property and all the comforts and enjoyments of their 
customary mode of living, but they do not wander about 
homeless; they build themselves half-covered huts in the 
forest and live there, alone or with their women, on the roots 
and berries of the forest ; their sacred fire also accompanies 
them, and they continue as before to perform at least a part of 
the duties of the sacrificial cult. 

It is probable that there were from the beginning persons, 
chiefly Brahmans, who as beggars or forest hermits sought 
their deliverance in retirement from worldly concerns. But 
an exclusive right of Brahmans only to those spiritual treasures, 
to obtain which men parted with all earthly treasure, was not 
asserted in early times ; we have no trace that before Buddha's 
time, or in Buddha's own time, the Brahman caste had come 
forward with claims of such a kind, or that there was need of 
any struggle whatever to win for prince and peasant, as well as 
Brahman, the right to leave wife and child, goods and chattels, 
in order to seek, as mendicant monks, in poverty and purity 
of life, the deliverance of their souls. Side by side with the 
Brahmans, who appear in the old philosophical dialogues 
speaking of the mysteries of the Atman, we find in more than 
one place princes, and even wise women are not wanting in 
these circles ; why should men desire to forbid those^ whose 
discourses on deliverance they listened to and applauded, an 
entry on that life of holy renunciation, which leads man to <;hi> 
deliverance ? 

A point which seems highly characteristic of the religious 



THE BEGlNmNO OF EERMIT LIfE, 



63 



tone of this Vedic monasticism, is the strongly maintained 
esoteric character of the feith. There was a conaciouanesa of 
poseesaing a knowledge which could and must belong to but 
-a few, to chosen persona, & sort of select doctrine, which was 
'not intended to penetrate the national life. The father might 
impart the secret to his son, and the teacher to his pupil, but, 

, the circle of the beKevers in the Atman, there was wholly 
wanting that warm-hearted enthusiasm which holda that it 
then, and then only, properly enjoys the possession of its own 
goods, when it has summoned all the world to participate in 
Iheir possession. 

Out sources of information are quite too incomplete for us 
to be able, while resting on the snre ground of transmitted 
lacts, to trace even the most prominent only of the landmarks 
in the further development of Indian monasticism. Conjectural 
constructiona must here come to our aid, which, even where 
they show with tolerable certainty something like what must 
have taken place, yet utterly fail ua if we seek for those 
^Dches, which could impart to the picture of this evolution an 
Appearance of life. 

Two events, which stand apparently in cloae connection 
with each other, must have played a prominent part in the 
development of this monasticism from its beginning up to the 
irtage in which Buddha found it : the cohesion of monks and 
asceticB into organized fraternities, and therewith the emanci- 
pation of numbers, or even of a majority and the paramount. 
Among these fraternities, from the authority of the Vedaa. 

It appears that these two important occurrences, were 
materially influenced by a change of geographical scene. We 
^>oke in the beginning of this sketch of the difference of 
cnltnre in the western and eastern parts of the Gangetic tract : 
the holy land of the Veda, the home of Yedic poetry and Vedic 



64: A8CETICI8M^M0NA8TIC ORDERS. 

• 

speculation lies in the west : the east has acquired the Yeda 
and the Brahmanical system from the intellectually more 
advanced west^ but this foreign element was not wholly 
assimilated^ converted into flesh and blood. A different air 
blows in the east ; like the language which gives a preference 
to the weak I above the rough r of the west, the whole being 
is more relaxed; the Brahman is here less, the king and the 
people more. The movement, which had its origin in the west, 
here loses much of the fantastically abstruse which was in 
it, probably also something of the bold vastness and clear 
sequence of ideas, and thereby gains in popularity ; questions, 
which it was chiefly the schools and the intellectual aristocracy 
of the nation had touched in the west, change in the east into 
vital questions for the people. Here men trouble themselves 
but little about the mystic universal One of Brahmanical 
speculation;* so much the more decidedly into the foreground 
come the ideas of the sorrow of every state of being, of moral 
retribution, of purification of the soul, of deliverance. 

It cannot be ascertained whether any poKtical convulsions 
or social revolutions were also in play at that time, to direct 
people's minds with particular earnestness and energy to 
thoughts and questions such as these. Christianity founded 
its kingdom in times of the keenest suffering, amid the death 
struggles of a collapsing world. India lived in more settled 
peace; if the government of its small states was the evil 
despotism of the Oriental, men know of no other government 

* It is significant that, although the speculations of the Upanishads 
regarding the Atman and the Brahma mast, in Buddha's time, have 
been long since propounded, and must have become part of the standing 
property of the students of the Vedas, the Buddhist texts never enter 
into them, not even polemically. The Brahma, as the universal One, is 
not alluded to by the Buddhists, either as an element of an alien or of 
their own creed, though they very frequently mention the god Brahma. 



MONASTia ORDERS. 

id made no complaint ; was the galf between poverty and 
salth, between knight and yeoman, a wide one — and it has 
hraya been ao in that land by natural necessity — still it was 
f no means the poor and oppressed alone, or even chiefly, who 
iDght in monastic robes freedom from the burdens of the 
orld. 

Voices are raised full of bitter lamentations over the 
Bgenea^&ey o£ the age, the insatiable gi-eed o£ men, which 
lows no limit, nntil death comes and makes rich and poor 
Eke: "1 behold the rich in this world,^' says a Baddhist 
ntra;* "of the goods which they have acquired, in their 
lUy they give nothing to others; they eagerly heap riches 
)gether and farther and still farther they go in their pursuit of 
ijoyment. The king, although he may have conquered the 
iogdoms of the earth, although he may be ruler of all land 
ia side the sea, np to the ocean's shore, would, still insatiate, 
vet that which is beyond the sea. The king and many other 
en, with desires unsatisfied, fall a prey to death j . . , . 
dther relatives nor friends, nor acquaintances, save the dying 
m; the heirs take his property; but he receives the reward 
his deeds ; ao treasures accompany him who dies, nor wife 
a child, nor property nor kingdom." And in another Sutra 
is said ;t " the princes, who rule kingdoms, rich in treasures 
id wealth, turn their greed against one another, pandering 
isatiably to their desires. If these act thus restlessly, 
■rimming in the stream of impermanonce, carried along by 
reed and carnal desire, who then can walk on the oarth in 



But from passages like these, current as they ixvu among the 

' Hiillhapila-Suttanta in the " ATajihima-NikAya," fol. a^V of tlie 

nrnonr M9> 

t " Saijiynttaka-Niklya," rol. !, fol. ku' of the Phayre MS. 



66 ASCETICISM— MONASTIC ORDERS. 

moral preceptors of all ages and all lands, we cannot infer that 
at that time there was an atmosphere prevalent something like 
that prevailing at Eome in the sultry period of the early days 
of the empire. No such period was necessary for the Indian 
to strike him with sudden terror at the picture of life which 
surrounded him, to bring to his notice the traces of death in 
that picture. From the unprofitableness of a state of being 
to which they had not learned to give stability by labours 
and struggles for ends worthy of labour and struggle, men 
fly to seek peace for the soul in a renunciation of the world. 
The rich and the noble still more than the poor and humble; 
the young, wearied of life before life had well begun, rather 
than the old, who have nothing more to hope from life; 
women and maidens, abandon their homes and don the garb 
of monks and nuns. Everywhere we meet pictures of those 
struggles, which every day must have brought in that period, 
between those who make this resolution, and the parents, the 
wife, the children, who detain those eager for renunciation ; 
acts of invincible determination are narrated of those who, 
in spite of all. opposition, have managed to burst the bonds 
which bound them to a home-life. 

Soon teachers appeared in more than one place who pro- 
fessed to have discovered independently of Vedic tradition a 
new, and the only true path of deliverance, and such teachers 
failed not to attract scholars, who attached themselves to them 
in their wanderings through the land. Under the protection 
of the most absolute liberty of conscience which has ever 
existed, sects were added to sects, the Niggantha '^ those ficeed 
from fetters,''* the Acelaka 'Hhe naked," and by whatever 

• This sect, founded by one of the older contemporaries of Buddha, 
has maintained its ground to this day mid.er the name of Jaina, especially 
in the south and west of the Indian peninsula. The view of it, which we 



67 



TEEm rucREAsnia popularity. 

other name those communities of monks and i 
themselves, into whose midst the young brotherhood of Buddha 
entered. The name which people gave to these persons of 
self -constituted religious standing in contradistinction to the 
Brahmans, whose dignity rested on their birth, was " Samana," 
i,e.. Ascetic; thus Buddha was called the Samana Gotama ; 
people caUed his disciples " the Samanas who follow the son of 
the Sakya house." It is probable also that already one and 
another among the older Samana-sects had gone so far as to 
attribate to the teacher round whom they gathered, dogmatic 
attributes in a way similar to that in which the Buddhists 
acted at a later time with reference to the founder of their 
Church; the man of the Sakya race is not the only, and 
probably not oven the first, who has been honoured in India 
as " the enlightened one " (Buddha) or as " the conqueror " 
{Jina) ; he was only one among tha numerous saviours of the 
world and teachers of goda and men who then travelled 
through the country, preaching in monastic garb. 

The paths of deliverance, by which those masters led their 
believers in quest of salvation, were legion; for us, who 
1 this subject only the hardly impartial reports of the 
Buddhists and Jainas, their serious thought is, it must be 
allowed, covered deeply over with dull or abstruse conceits. 
There were Ascetics who lived in self-mortification, dented 
themselves nourishment for long periods, did not wash them- 
aelvea, did not sit down, rested on beds of thorns ; there were 
adherents of the faith in the purifying efficacy of water, 
who were intent on purging by continued ablations all guilt 
which clung to them ; others aimed at conditions of spiritual 

get £rom itg othem-ise comparatively modem sacred literature, corresponds 
ID many essential points witli Euddhiam. One point of difference lay in 
the great importance ivliich the Niggantlia attached to penances. 



68 SOPHISTIC. 

abstraction, and souglit, wliile separating themselves from 
all perception of external realities, to imbue themselves with 
the feeling of the '' eternity of space/' or of the '^ eternity of 
reason,'' or of '' not-any thing- whatever-ness," and whatever 
else these conditions were called. It may easily be imagined 
that, among this multiplicity of holy men, the whimsical were 
not unrepresented: we are told of a '^ hen-saint," whose vow 
consisted in picking up his food from the ground like a hen 
and, as far as possible, in all matters acting like a hen; 
another saint of a similar type lived as a ^'cow-saint," and 
thus the Buddhist accounts give a by no means short list of 
different kinds of holy men in those days, few among whom 
seem to have always been lucky enough to preserve their 
holiness firom the fate of ridicule and from dangers more 
serious than ridicule. 



Sophistic. 

Certain phenomena which developed themselves in the busy 
bustle of these ascetic and philosophizing circles, may be 
described as a species of Indian sophistic ; wherever a Socrates 
appears, sophists cannot fail to follow. The conditions under 
which this sophistic arose are in fact quite similar to those 
which gave birth to their Greek counterpart. In the footsteps 
of those men, such as the Eleatics and the enigmatic Ephesian, 
who opened up the highways of thought with their simple 
and large ideas, there followed Gorgiases and Protogorases, 
and a whole host of ingenious, specious, somewhat frivolous 
virtuosi, dealers in dialetic and rhetoric. In exactly the 
same way in India there came after the earnest thinkers of the 
masculine, classical period of Brahmanical speculation, a younger 



generation of dialecticians, professed controversialists with an 
overweening materialist or sceptical air, who were not deficient 
in either the readiness or the ability to show op all sidea of, 
the ideas of their great predecessorsj to modify them, and to 
tnm them into their oppositcs. System after system was 
constracted, it seems, with tolerably light building material. 
We know little more than a series of war-cries: diacossions were 
raised about eternity or transitoriness of the world and the 
ego, or a reconciliation of these opposifces, eternity in the one 
direction or transitorinesa in the other, or about infiniteness 
and finitenesa of the world, or about the assertion of infiniteness 
and Sniteness at the same time, or about the negation 
of infiniteness as well as finiteness. Then spring up the 
b^innings of a logical scepticism, the two doctrines, of which 
the fondamental propositions mn, " everything appears to me 
trne," and "everything appears to me untrue," and here 
obviously the dialectician, who declares everything to bo 
nntrue, is met forthwith by the question whether he looks 
npon this theory of his own also, that everything is untrue, as 
likewise untrue. Men wrangle over the existence of a world 
beyond, over the continuance after death, over the freedom of 
the human will, over the existence of moral retribution. To 
Makkhali GosiVla, whom Buddha is represented as having 
declared to be the worst of all erroneous teachers,* is ascribed 
the negation of free will : " there is no power (of action), 
there is no ability ; man has no strength, man has no control ; 
all beings, everything that breathes, everything that is. 



* "As, O je disciples, of all woven garments which there ai 
cf hair is deemed the worst — a garment of hair, my digciples, is in cold 
weather cold, in heat hot, of a dirf j colour, has a bad smell, is rough to 
the tonch — so, my disciples, of all doctrines of other ascetics and Brahmana 
the doctrine of MakldialL is deemed the worst." — Angntiara Nik&j/a- 



70 SOPHISTIC 

everything tliat has life is powerless, without power or ability 
to control (its own actions); it is hurried on to its goal by fate, 
decree, nature ;^'-^every being passes through a fixed series 
of re-births, at the end of which the fool as well as the 
wise "puts a period to pain/' And the existence of- a moral 
government is also denied; Purana Kassapa teaches: "If a 
man makes a raid on the south bank of the Ganges, kills and 
lets kill, lays waste and lets lay waste, burns and lets burn, he 
imputes no guilt to himself ; there is no punishment of guilt. 
If a man crosses to the north bank of the Ganges, distributes 
and causes to be distributed charity, offers and causes to be 
offered sacrifices, he does not thereby perform a good work ; 
there is no reward for good works/' And another expression 
of similar doctrines : ^^ the wise and the fool, when the body is 
dissolved, are subject to destruction and to annihilation ; they 
are not beyond death/' In disputations before adherents, 
opponents, and great masses of people, these professional 
wranglers and " hair-splitters " — this word was even then in 
use in India — made propaganda for their theories; like their 
Greek counterparts, though a good deal coarser, they caused 
swaggering reports of their dialectic invincibihty to go before 
them. Saccaka says : " I know no Samana, and no Brahman, 
no teacher, no master, no head of a school, even though he 
calls himself J^the holy supreme Buddha, who, if he face me in 
debate, would, not totter, tremble, quake, and from whom the 
sweat would not exude. And if I attacked a lifeless pillar with 
.my language, it would totter, tremble, quake ; how much more 
a human being !" Possibly, the Buddhists, on whose reports 
we are here dependent, may in their animosity against this 
class of dialecticians have drawn them in darker colours than 
was fair; the picture of such a sophistic is certainly not alia 
fabrication. 



SOPHISTIC. 71 

At this time of deep and many-sided intellectual movements, 
wliich had extended from the circles of Brahmanical thinkers 
fer into the people at large, when amateur studies of the 
dialectic routine had already groYm up out of the arduous 
straggles of the past age over its simple profound thoughts, 
when dialectic scepticism began to attack moral ideas — at this 
time, when a painful longing for deliverance from the burden 
of being was met by the first signs of moral decay, Gotama 
Buddha appears upon the scene. 



PART I. 

BUDDHA'S LIFE. 



CHAPTER L 



The Charactbe op Teadition — ^Legend and Myth. 

There is no lack of current legendary narratives whicli the 
Buddhists relate concerning the founder of their faith. Can 
we learn anything of the life of Buddha from them ? Some 
have gone farther, and have asked : has Buddha ever lived ? 
Or at least, as Buddhism must have had a founder : has that 
Buddha ever lived whom those narratives seem to present 
to us, though in a superhuman form and in miraculous 
surroundings ?* 

That ingenious student of Indian antiquity who has occu- 
pied himself most closely with this question, Emile Senart^f 
answers it with an absolute no. A Buddha may have lived 
semewhere at some period, but that Buddha, of whom Buddhist 
tradition speaks, has never lived. This Buddha is not a man : 
his birth, the struggles he undergoes, and his death, are not 
those of a man. 

And what is this Buddha? From the earliest age the 

* In the second Excursus at the end of this work the chief authoritative 
sources relative to Buddha's life are collected from the sacred P&li texts 
and discussed. 

t Senart, "Essai snr la l^gende du Buddha/* Paris, 1875. 



FORMATION OF TRADITION. LEQEND AND MYTB. 



73 



allegorical poetry of tlio Indiana, like that of the Greeks and 
the Germans, treats of the destinies of the sun-hero : of his 
birth from the moming-cloudj which, as soon as it has given 
tim being, must itself vanish before the rays of its illuminating 
child ; of his battle with and victory over the dark demon of 
the thnnder-cloud; how he then marches triumphantly across 
the firmament, until at last the day declines and the light-hero 
Buccombs to darkness. 

Senart seeks to trace step by step in the history of Buddha's 
life, the history of the life of the sun-hero : like the sun from 
the clouds of night, he issues from the dark womb of Mayii,; 
a flash of light pierces through all the world when he is boro ; 
MiLy& dies Hke the morning-cloud which vanishes before the 
sun's rays. Like the sun-hero conquering the tbimder-demon, 
Buddha vanquishes Mara, the Tempter, in dire combat, under 
the sacred tree ; the tree is the dark cloud-trcc in heaven, 
round which the battle of thunderstorm rages. Wlen the 
victory is won, Buddha proceeds to preach his evangelium to 
all worlds, "to set in motion the wheel of the Law j" this is 
the son-god who sends his illuminating wheel revolving across 
the firmament. At last the life of Buddha draws to a close ; 
te witnesses the terrible destruction of his whole house, the 
Sakya race, which is annihilated by enemies, as at sunset tho 
powers of light die away in the blood-red tints of the evening 
clouds. His own end has now arrived: the flames of the 
funeral pile, on which Buddha's corpse is burnt, are extin- 
guished by streams _of water, which come pouring down from 
Heaven, just as the sun-hero dies in the sea of Are kindled by 
his own rays, and the last flames of his diviue obsequies die 
ont on the horizon in the moisture of the evening mist.* 
* Cf. Senart's wort already referred to, especially the retami, p. 504, 



14: 8ENART AND THE MYTHOLOGICAL 

In Senart's opinion^ Buddha^ the real Buddha^ did exists it 
is true : Iiis reality^ he admits^ is a logical necessity^ inasmnch 
as we see the reality of the Church founded by him; but 
beyond this bare reality there is nothing substantial. The 
fancy of his followers attached to his person the great 
allegorical ballad of the life of the sun-god in human guise^ 
the life of the man Buddha had been forgotten. 

One cannot read the ingenious efforts of Senart without 
admiring the energy with which the French scholar constrains 
the Veda as well as the Indian epic, the literature of the 
Greeks as well as that of northern races — no small constraint 
was here necessary — ^to bear witness for his solar Buddha. 
But one is astonished that this so extensive reading has not 
availed itself, when dealing with the legends of Buddha, of 
one field, which would have presented not less important 
sources of information than the Homeric hymns and the Edda : 
the oldest available literature of Buddhism itself, the oldest 
declarations of the body of Buddha's disciples regarding the 
personality of their master. Senart bases his criticism almost 
wholly on the legendary biography, the "Lalita-Vistara,''cm'rent 
among the northern Buddhists in Tibet, China and Naipal. 
But would it be allowable for any one, who undertook to write 
a criticism on the life of Christ, to set aside the New Testament, 
and follow solely the apocryphal gospels or any legendary works 
whatsoever of the Middle Ages ? Or does the law of criticism, 
which requires us to trace back tradition to its oldest form, 
before forming an opinion on it, not deserve to be as closely 
observed in the case of Buddhism as in that of Christianity ? 

The most ancient traditions of Buddhism are those preserved 
in Ceylon and studied by the monks of that island up to the 
present day. 

While in India itself the Buddhist texts experienced new 



COKCEPTION OF BVDDMA. 75 

fortunes from century to century, and while the ceremonies of 
the original Chnrcli were vanishing continually more and mora 
tebind the poetry and fiction of later generations, the Church 
of Ceylon remained true to the simple, homely, " Word of the 
Ancients" (Thoravflda) . The dialect itself in which it was 
recorded contribnted to preserve it from corruptions, the 
language of the southern Indian territories, whoso Churches 
and missions had naturally taken the largest shore, if not the 
initiative, in the conversion of Ceylon.* This language of the 
texts (" Pali "), imported from the south of India, is regarded 
in Ceylon as sacred : and it is there supposed that Buddha 
himself, and all Buddhas of preceding ages, had spoken it. 
Though the legends and speculations of later periods might 
find their way into the religious literature produced in the 
island and written in the popular tongue of Ceylon, the sacred 
P4Ii texts remained unaffected by them. 

It is to the P&li traditions we must go in preference to all 
other aonrces, if we desire to know whether any information 
ia obtainable regarding Buddha and his life. 

There wo see first and foremost that from the very begin- 
ning, as far back as we can go to the time of the earliest 
utterances of Buddhist religious consciousness, there is a firm 
conviction that the source of saving knowledge and holy life is 
the word of a teacher and founder of the Church, whom they 
designate the Exalted Ono (Bhagava), or the Knowing, the 
Enlightened One (Buddha), Whoever proposes to enter the 

•According to the ChurcliLiatory of tlie island which has attained a fixed 
canonical status in Ceylon, and wLich first meeta us in texts of the fourth 
and fiilh centnry after Christ, but wliicli must be based on considerably 
older memoranda, Maliinda, the son of the great Indian ting Aaoka 
(circ. 260 b.c), waa the converter of Ceylon. The tradition ia in aome 
essential parts obviously a concoction ; how much or how little truth it 
containa, cannot for the present be determined with certainty. 



76 THE pIm WBJTINQS AB BASIS OF BUDDHIST TBADJTION. 

spiritnal brotlierliood^ repeats this formulA three times : '' I take 
my refage with Buddha; I take my reftige in the Doctrine : I 
take my refuge in the Order/' At the fortnightly confession, 
the liturgy of which is among the oldest of all the monuments 
of Buddhist Church life, the monk, who leads in the confession, 
diarges the brethren who are present, not to conceal by silence 
any sins which they have committed^ for silence is lying, 
''And intentional lying, O brethren, brings destruction; thus 
hath the Exalted One said/' And the same liturgy of con- 
fession describes monks, who embrace heresies, by putting in 
their mouths these words : " Thus I understand the doctrine 
which the Exalted One hath preached,'' etc. Throughout it is 
not an impersonal revelation, nor is it the individual's own 
thought, but it is the person, the word of the Master, the 
Exalted One,, the Buddha, which is regarded as the source of 
the truth and holy life. 

And this master is not regarded as a wise man of the dim 
past, but people think of him as of a man, who has lived in a 
not very remote past. A century is said to have passed from 
his death to the council of the seven hundred &thers at Vesili 
(about 380 B.C.), and it may be taken as a fact that the great 
bulk of the holy texts, in which from beginning to end his 
person and his doctrine are the central points, in which his life 
and his death are spoken of, had been already compiled before 
this council of the Church assembled : the oldest components 
of these texts, such as the liturgy of the confession to which 
we have referred, belong in all probability much rather to the 
beginning than to the end of this first century after Buddha's 
death. The period, therefore, which separates the deponent 
witnesses from the events to which they undertake to depose, 
is short enough : it is not much longer, probably not at all 
longer^ than the period which elapsed between the death of 



THE mSTOEICAL CEARACTER OF THE TEASITION. 77 

I Jcsos and tliQ compilation o£ our gospels. Is it credible that 
I during the lapse of such a time in the Church of Buddha, all 
I gentune memory of hia life eonld be extruded by baUada of the 
transferred to his personality? — crushed out in a 
K^liood of ascetics, in whose circle of ideas, according to 
ince of the literature which they have bequeathed to 
hing else possessed a higher value than these veiy 
ids of nature ? 
Xet ns now examine more closely how far the collective 
picture of the age of which the sacred testa speak, bears on 
the question of Buddha's personahty. The PfiU books give 
ti8 an exceedingly concrete picture of the movements of the 
teUgions world of India at the period in which Buddha, if 
ho really lived, miist have played a part in it; we possess 
the most minute details of all the holy men who, sometimes 
standing alone and sometimes surrounded by communities 
of adherents, with and without organization, some in more 
profound and some in. more shallow terms, preached to the 
people salvation and deliverance. There are mentioned, among 
others, as contemporariea of Buddha, six groat teachers, to the 
Snddhists naturally false teachers, the heads of six sects holding 
:other faiths ; and we find one of them, Nfltaputta, according 
to Bubler's and Jacobi's learned researches, mentioned in the 
texts of the Jaina sects, still numerously represented in India 
t the present day, as the founder of their faith and the saviour 
of these sects, with whom he occupies a place analogous to that 
which is given to Buddha in the Buddhist texts. As regards 
this Nfitaputta, we are, therefore, in such a position that wo 
possess two groups of accounts — those of his own followers, to 
whom he is the holy, the enlightened one, the victor (Jina), tho 
£nddha — the texts of the Jainaa also use this last expression 
^_ the' statements of the Buddhists, who stigmatize hiirt 



7S THE mSTOmCAL CHARACTER OF THE TRABITIOy. 

as an ascetic leader^ teaching an erroneous doctrine — as a 
pretender^ claiming the dignity which properly belongs to 
Baddha. The Baddhists^ as well as the Jainas^ casually men- 
tion the place where N&tapatta died; both name the same 
place^ the town of P&v& — ^a small but by no means insignificant 
contribation to the valae of these traditions. The harmony of 
the testimony regarding a collateral fact of this description 
makes ns conscious that we are here treading on the sure 
ground of historical reality. 

It is evident that Buddha was a head of a monastic order of 
the very same type as that to which N&taputta belonged ; that 
he journeyed from town to town in the garb and with all the 
external circumstance of an ascetic^ taught^ and gathered round 
himself a band of disciples^ to whom he gave their simple 
ordinances^ such as the Brahman s and the other monastic 
brotherhoods possessed. 

I hold that^ even under the most unfavourable circumstances^ 
we can lay claim to the possession of this much at least of 
reliable information^ as reliable as any knowledge of sncfa. 
things can ever be. 

But does all that we can gather end here ? Are there not^ 
in the masses of &ble which tradition places at our disposal^ 
some further, more specific traces of historical truth to be 
found, which contribute to give life to that first outline ? 

In order to be able to answer this question, we shall next 
describe the aspect of the tradition as regards its details. 

Here it must be premised as a cardinal statement: a 
biography of Buddha has not come down to us from ancient 
times, from the age of the P&li texts, and, we can safely say, 
no such biography was in existence then.* This is, moreover, 

• This assertion is supported as well by what the Pah texts contain, as 
by what they do not contain. They do not contain either a biogn^y 



WM'T OF AN ANCIENT BIOGBAFHT OF BUDDBA. 70 

very easily nnclerBtood. The idea of biography was foreign to 
tte miad of that age. To take the Ufe of a man as a whole, 
its development from beginning to end, as a unified Bubject 
for literary treatmentj this thought, though ifc appears to us 
natural and obvious, had not occurred to any one yet in 
that age. 

To this was added that in those times the interest in the life 
of the master receded entirely behind the interest attached to 
his teaching. It was esactly the same in the circles of the 
early Christian Church and in the circles of the Socratio 

of Buddha, or even the slightest trace of auch a tiling having been in 
eiistenee before, and tliis alone ia eondusire. Tlie lass of testa, which 
! once possessed, and A JbrtioH the !ois of all memory of them, is 
wholly unmentioned in the literary history of the Tipitaka. On tlic 
contrary, the texts contain here and there unconnected fragments of the 
hiatoty of Buddha's life, in a form which oar Eieursus II. will eiemplify, 
and which cannot be conatraed as if the complete life of Buddha had at 
that time already found a connected literary exposition. Senart (p. 7, 8) 
has not overlooted the fact that in the sacred literature of the Bouthem 
Bnddhists there is no work lile the "Lalita Tiatara" in the north, in 
which there is a connected narrative of Buddha's life up to the beginning 
of hifl career as a teacher. But the esplaiiation which the French scholar 
gives of thia fact will scarcely gain acceptance with many. The legeud 
ofBuddha, with its popular character, he says, "a du dcmcnrer partieu- 
li^rcment vivace parmi lea populations dont ello f5tait reellcment I'teuvre, 
et qui, Aka le diSbut, avaient activcmcnt collabore a rctablisBement et aux 
progres de la eeete nouvelle. A Ccylan au contraire, ou le buddhisme, 
«'introduisit surtoat par une propagando theologiijue et Baeerdotale, dea 
r^dts de ce genre n'avaient ni pour lee predicatenra ni pour leura 
neophytes un int^r6t si sensible ni si vivant." It will not be easy to 
prove thia alleged difference bettreen the dogmatic tendency of the 
Ceylonese, and the leaninga of the northern Church to popular legend. 
In fact, the greater antiquity of the PS.li version of the aacred tests, 
eompared with the northern editions, infected throughout by later hterary 
currents, is the sole and completely satisfactory means of explaining the 
liust in question. 



80 CHARACTER OF TEE TRADITION. 

schools. Long before people began to commit to writmg flie 
life of Jesus in the manner of oar gospels^ there was curenft 
in the yonng communities a collection of discourses and 
sayings of Jesus (Koyia tcvpuucd) ; to this collection 
appended just so much precise narrative matter as 
necessary to call to mind the occasion when^ and the ext^nal 
surroundings amid which^ the several discourses were delivered. 
This collection of the sayings of Jesus laid no claim to anj 
historical arrangement or sequence whatever^ or to any chrono- 
logical accuracy. Similarly the Memorabilia Socratica of 
Xenophon. The method and manner of Socratic action are 
here illustrated by a rich profusion of the individual utteranoes 
of Socrates. But neither Xenophon nor any other of the old 
Socratics has given us the life of Socrates. What should 
induce them to do so ? The form of Socrates was memorable 
to the Socratics for the words of wisdom, which came from the 
lips of that great^ eccentric man^ not for the poor external 
fortunes of his life. 

The development of the traditions of Buddha corresponds as 
closely as possible to these parallel illustrations. His disciples 
had begun at an early date to fix those discourses which the 
great teacher had preached^ or at any rate^ discourses after the 
method and manner in which he had delivered them^ and to 
deliver these to the Church. They did not omit to note 
where and to whom he had uttered or wa§ supposed to have 
uttered each word; this was necessary in order to fix in 
concrete the situation^ and thereby to place the authenticity 
of the respective words of Buddha beyond all doubt. But^ 
when Buddha said so and so^ they did not ask. The narratives 
begin : At one time — or : at this time the exalted Buddha was 
tarrying at such and such a place ; as &r as dates go^ this is 
worthless. People in India have never had any organ for the 



irJ-Vr OF AS ASCIEST BlOGJiAPHT OF BUDDHA. 



-when o£ things : and in the life of an ascetic, sucli as Buddha 
was especially, year after year rolled by so very uniformly that 
it must have appeared to tbem superllaoua to ask : Wheu did 
this or that happen ? When was this or that word uttered ? — 
provided any one bad ever thought at all of the possibility of 
each a question arising.* 

Special events in the course of his wandering life, meetings 
with this and that other teacher, with this and that worldly 
|)oteQtate, were associated with the memory of one or other 
aatbentio or invented discourse; the first stages of his public 
career, the conversion of his first disciples, and then again the 
■end, his farewell address to hia followers, and his death, stand 
ont, as may bo readily understood, most prominent of all in 
the foreground of theso memories. Thus there were bio- 
graphical fragments, but a biography was compiled from them 
{or the first time at a much later period. 

Comparatively few are the memoranda preserved in the older 
nathonties regarding the early life of Buddha, the years 
preceding the beginning of his professional cai*eor, or, to put 
it as the Indiana are wont to do, tho period prior to the attain- 
ment of tho Buddhahood, when he had not yet acquired, but 
was still seeking, that saving knowledge, which constituted 
Tiira the teacher of the worlds of gods and men. That we hear 
Jpas of these days than of others, is exphcable. The interest 
of the Church was fixed not so mnch on his worldly character 



" At a later time, indeeil, thia queation waa acluallj put, and tliea 
<ibTiouily tliere was no emburriLsBincnt felt for a momeiit in answcriDg il. 
Tlion were drawn up those great lieti^ of what BaddLa hod said and done 
iu the sixth, serenth, eighth, etc., year of his Buddhahood {e.g., vide 
Bigaadet, "Lire of Gaudama," p. l&J, etc.). The utter worthlesBDesa of 
these later-produced lists is obvious, when we bear in mind the absolute 
silcoce of the sacred texts as to matters of chronology. 



82 FOBMATION OF TRADITION. 

as the child and heir of the Sakya house, as on the person of 
the '^ exalted, sacred, universal Buddha/' People desired to- 
know what he had uttered from that time forward, when he 
had become the Buddha; behind that vanished the interest in 
everything else, even the interest in this struggle for the 
Buddhahood.* It is later centuries which have built up a 
history of Buddha with wonders piled on wonders on a scale 
quite different from older times, and which first devoted 
themselves with special zeal to surrounding the form of the 
blessed child with the extravagant creations of a boundless 
imagination. 

Let us now examine the tradition, meaning, of course, the 
older tradition continued in the sacred P&li texts, to define 
accurately of what kind are the fabulous elements contained 
in them. 

It is obvious that the appearance of the deliverer of the 
world on earth, must have presented itself to the believer^s 
mind as an event of incomparable importance ; to the Indian,, 
who was and is accustomed, in the most trivial incidents of 
his own daily life, to pay attention to concomitant omens,, 
it would have been the most impossible contingency if the 
conception of the exalted, holy, universal Buddha had not 

♦ Moreover, there is in the external form of the SAtra, and Yinaya texts 
a point which essentially contributes to explain this receding of narratives> 
of Buddha's youth. Inasmuch as these texts, with inconsiderable 
exceptions, do not contain arbitrary communications, couched in a 
freely chosen form, but always an instructive speech of Buddha or an 
ordinance prescribed by Buddha for his disciples, it was only occurrences 
in his career as Buddha which could be chosen for the introductory 
narratives on the occasions which called for these utterances of Buddha ; 
Lis youth could only be touched on in occasional allusions or by 
putting in his own mouth communications regarding that period of 
his life. 



DIFFEBUNT QltOUrS OF LEGENDAltY ELEMENTS. S3 

been already announced fey the mightiest wonclera and signs, 
and if the whole universe had not joined in its celebration. 
An inconceivably bright flash of light pierces through the 
oniverse; the worlds quake; the four divinities, who have in 
their protection the four quarters of the heavens, combine to 
keep guard over the pregnant mother. The birth is attended 
by wonders in no less a degree. The Brahmans possessed lists 
of bodily signs which import good and bad fortunes to men ; 
the infant Bnddha must obviously bear on his person all 
auspicious marks in the highest perfection, in the same 
perfection as a world-ruHug monarch ; the soothsayers declare: 
" if he choose a worldly life, bo will become a, ruler of the 
world; if he renounce the world, he will become the 
Buddha." 

We need not cite any more fabulous embellishment a of this 
description : their character cannot be mistaken. As it seemed 
to the Christian Church an obvious necessity, that all power 
and excellence, which the prophets of the Old Testament 
possessed, must have dwelt with enhanced glory in the person 
of Jesus, it was in the same way natural that the Buddhists 
should attribute to the founder of their Church all wonders 
and perfections, which, in the Indian mind, were attributed to 
the most powerful heroes and sages. Among the foundations, 
on which Indian intuitions rest, regarding that which pertains 
to an all-powerful hero and conqueror of the world, the ancient 
natnro-myth, the original signification of which had long since 
ceased to be understood, is obviously not wanting ; and thus it 
is not a matter of surprise, if one and another of the traits 
which were mentioned in the circles of monks and lay-diaciples 
aa indicating the nobility of Buddha, oomes at last through 
many media to be connected with that which many centuries 
before, among the herdsmen and peasants of the Vedic age. 



84: FORMATION OF TRADITION. 

and mnch earlier still among the common forefathers of the 
Indian^ Grecian^ and German stocks^ popolar fancy had 
associated in song with the sun-hero^ the beaming type of all 
earthly heroism. This is the element of propriety which 
cannot be denied to Senart's theory of the solar Buddha. 

As regards another group of legendary touches^ it may well 
be in part doubted whether we have not in them historical 
memories. The elements of the tradition regarding Buddha 
hitherto mentioned flowed from the universal belief in 
Buddha's all-overpowering might and nobility, but the much 
more important and more prominent characteristics, of which 
we shall now have to treat, have their origin partly in the 
special theological predicates which Buddhist speculation 
affirmed of the holy, knowing. Delivered One, and partly in 
the external events which regularly occurred in the life of 
the Indian ascetic, and which consequently, according to an 
inference so naturally drawn by legend, cannot have been 
wanting in the life of Buddha, the ideal ascetic. 

What makes a Buddha a Buddha is, as his name indicates, 
his knowledge. He does not possess this knowledge, like 
a Christ, by virtue of a metaphysical superiority of his natore, 
surpassing everything earthly, but he has gained it, or, more 
strictly speaking, won it by a struggle. The Buddha is at the 
same time the Jina, i.e., the conqueror. The history of the 
struggle for the Buddhahood must therefore precede the 
history of the Buddha. 

Battle involves an enemy, a victor the vanquished. The 
Prince of life must be opposed by the Prince of Death. We 
have seen how the Indian mind had settled for itself the 
identity of the kingdom of death, and the kingdom of this 
world. We call to mind the role of the Death-god in the 
ITedic poem of Naciketas, to whom he promises long life and 



HISTOBY OF ATTAmHEKT OF DELirERIXG KNOTVLEDOE. 8j 

fulfilment of all desire, in order that lie might abandon the 
porsait of knowledge. So also there comes to the ascetic 
seeking Buddhahood, as his opponent, Maraj Death, the lord of 
all worldly desire, which indeed ia nothing else than veiled 
death. Mara follows his enemy atep by step, and watches 
for a moment of weakness to overpower hia soul. No such 
moment comes. Amid many failnrea and desperate fights 
within, Buddha remains throughout unshaken. 

When he ia on the point of reaching the saving knowledge, 
the purchase of all hia efforts, Mara approaches him to divert 
him by tempting words from the path of aalvation. In vain. 
Bnddha attains the knowledge "that bringeth salvation" and 
the sapreme peace. 

We choose the narrative of this last struggle and victory, 
to illustrate by it the difference between Senart's and our 
conception of the nature of these legends. 

How does the primitive Church narrate the history of the 
attainment of the knowledge which "maketh free ? ' What are 
the real facts of the occurrence as accepted by them ? This, 
and only this, that Buddha, passing through a series of stages 
of eactasy, sitting under a tree through the three watches of a 
certain night, obtains the threefold sacred knowledge, that his 
soul becomes free from all sinful taint, and he becomes partaker 
of deliverance with a knowledge of his deliverance.* These 
purely theological elements far transcend in importance, in 
the opinion of the primitive Church, the struggle with Mflra j 
wherever in the sacred Pali texts the attainment of Buddha- 
hood is described, there is not a word spoken of MfLra. 

Some few passages in the textsf narrate distinct encounters 

• Fide references fo the sacred texts in Eicuraus II. 
+ The teits eompiled in a verse form are here especiaily referred to, in 
which the legendary element as compared with the purely dojrmatic alwajs 



8G FORMATION OF TRADITION. 

of Buddha with M&ra : sometimes they are referred to a timo 
not long before and sometimes to a time not long after the 
attainment of Buddhahood. Mara endeavours by seductive 
speeches to turn him from the path of holiness; mention is 
also made of temptresses^ who^ when the tempter has given up 
all for lost^ renew the fight ; the daughters of M&ra^ named 
Desire^ Unrest^ and Pleasure. Buddha remains unmoved in 
his peaceful quietude. 

These are the unadorned representations of the primitive 
Church. The simple thoughts^ from which these have been 
constructed, are, it seems, so very evident, that it would be no 
easy task even for the keeu intellect of Senart, to show that 
this is .the old myth of the victory of the sun-hero over the 
cloud-demons. Senart does not even attempt this, but he 
leaves this cast of the legends wholly untouched. 

He bases his criticism instead on that romance of wonders 
into which the grotesque tastes of later ages have transformed 
this primitive story.* Buddha sits down under the tree of 
knowledge with the firm resolve not to rise until he has 
attained the knowledge which "maketh free.^^ Then M&ra 
advances with his forces ; hosts of demons assail him (Buddha) 
with fiery darts, amid the whirl of hurricanes, darkness, and the 
downpour of floods of water, to drive him from the tree; 
Buddha maintains his position unmoved ; at last the demons fly. 

Whoever wishes to give a complete picture of. Senart's 
mythological fancies, must reproduce the history of this 
struggle of Buddha and the demons in much greater detail 

comes more into the foreground, than in the prose Sutras. Vide references 
in Excursus 11. 

* The chief sources of this later form of the legend, wholly foreign to 
the sacred Pali texts, are the commentary of the " J&taka" (i, p. 69, seq.) 
and the "Lalita Vistara" (cap. 19, seq.). 



HISTORY OF ATTAJNMENT OF DELIVElWia KNOWLEDGE. 87 

than I can maJie up my mind to do for tMa wild and coarse 
tableau of miracles and sensations, wholly foreign to ancient 
Buddhism. I shall con&ne myself to the discussion of a few 
characteristic points. 

The tree under which Baddha sits. M&ra is determined to 
drive him from it, i.e., naturally, he will defeat his resolve not 
to rise until he has attained deliverance. The demon says : 
" this place does not belong to you, it belongs to me." 

Thus, Senart concludes, the true object of the fight is the 
tree. The tree belongs to M3,ra: Buddha has taken possession 
of it. Contesting with him the possession of the tree and 
contesting with him the possession of deliverance are the same. 
How does the tree come to have this importance ? What is the 
tie which connects the possession of the knowledge that brings 
deliverance, to which Buddha's efforts are directed, with the 
2>os8ession of the tree ? 

The Veda mentions the heavenly tree which the lightning 
.strikes down ; the mythology of the Fins speaks of the heavenly 
oak which tho sun-dwarf uproots. Tama, the Tedic god of 
^leath, sits drinking with bands of the blessed under a leafy 
tree, just as in the northern Saga Hel's place is at the root of 
the ash Yggdrasill. 

The tree is the cloud-tree : in the clouds the heavenly flaid 
is stored, and it is guarded by the dark demons ; in the hymns 
of the Veda the powers of light and the powers of darkness 
tight their great battle for the clouds and the ambrosia which 
Xhey contain : this is the identical battle of Buddha with the 
hosts of M^ra. In the cloud-battle the ambrosia (amrita), 
which is in the clouds, is won ; the enlightenment and deliver- 
ance, which Buddha wins, are also called an ambrosia (amrita) ; 
ihe kingdom of knowledge is the land of immortality (pada.-u 
Amptam). 



88 FORMATION OF TRADITION. 

This is Senart's explanation. 

Would this acute scholar have ventured it, had he had before 
him the old account of the occurrence under the tree which is 
composed solely of dogmatic elements such as the description 
of the four ecstasies and the threefold knowledge attained by 
Buddha ? If he had been aware that Buddha and Mara in the 
older texts do not fight under the tree, still less for the tree ? 
That the only reference we hear of, made to the tree of 
knowledge, the supposed cloud-tree and ambrosia-tree, is this, 
that Buddha sat at its foot, when he fell into those trains of 
thought, which led him to the highest knowledge ?* Where- 
else sat in India in Buddha^s time, where else even down to 
our days do ascetics, who have no sheltering roof, and all 
vagrant folk, sit, but at the foot of a tree?t We are not com- 
parative mythologists and we cannot forget that, besides these- 
cloud-trees which are shattered by lightning or uprooted by 

* It is exceedingly characteristic of the method of Senart's criticism^ 
that he quotes a text of the stamp of the '' Saddharmapunda Bika'' (p. 247^ 
note 1), to show the inseparahility of the notions, Buddha and a tree of 
knowledge; he should have quoted the sacred PILli texts to show the 
complete non-essentiality of the tree. 

t Buddha tarries seven days at the foot of the banyan tree Ajapala 
(" Mahavagga," i, 2 and 5), and for the same length of time at the foot of 
the Mucalinda tree (i, 3) and of the Bajayatana tree (i, 4). On the- 
way from Benares to Uravela he leaves the street to sit down at the foot 
of a tree in a grore. SimDarly the monk Xassapa ('^ Cullayagga/' xi, 1, 1).. 
Ananda,^ urged by Buddha to leave him alone for awhile, '' set himself 
down at the foot of a tree not far off"("MahaFarinibbanaS./'p.24). 
In a description of the ascetic exerting himself, it is said (in the 
** CfOahatthipadopamasutta ") : " He dwells in a lonely spot, in a grove, 
at the foot of a tree, on a mountain, in a cave, in a mountain grotto, in a 
bnrial-plaee, in the wilderness, under an open sky, on a heap of straw."' 
(Of. also *' Cullavagga,'' vi, 1, 1.) The number of these instances of the 
tarrying of ascetics under trees may be multipHed ad lihiium, if there- 
be any necessity. 



UISTOBT OF ATTAiyHENT OF DElIVESIKa KNOWLEDGE. 89- 

the snn-dwarf, there grow other treea also on the earth, and 
we g^ ao far 03 to surmise, that the treesj at the foot of which 
Gotama Buddha was wont to sit and meditate, belonged to thia 
latter, much less deep-meaning but more widely extended, class 
of trees. 

Nor are we more successful in the effort to persuade ourselves 
o£ the mythical characterof the remaining elements o£ the narra- 
tive,* than we have been in the case of the Tree of Knowledge. 
The demons, who make an assault on Buddha, fling mountains- 
of fire, trees with their roots, glowing masses of iron, and 
"as if these so evident and obvious symbols did not Euffice, 
rain, darkness and lightning complete the pictui-e, and figuro 

* But not ao regarding the mythological significance of the person of 
AI£ni himaelf as a thunder-demon. It is entirely misleading to call op, 
in order to oiplain ao simple and transparent a tonception as that of 
Mira, the whole host of Vedio mythology and aymbolicftl conceptions 
Irom the firat-liorn Kama (Love) to the airy Agni and the demon Nnmuci. 
The original and prerailin); idea which finds expression in the peraonifioa- 
tion of Miira, is that of deuth ; the nonie indicates this clearly enough 
(" Mira, in loe. Antaka ;" cf. antea, p. 58, note). But that the prinee of 
death is at the same time the mler of the kingdom of eaTthly pleasure, 
the tempter to this pleasure, and is thus connected with Sdma, is 
adequately accounted for in the irourao of development, which pre- 
JJnddhist as well as Buddhist speculation has taken (viile antes, p. 58). 
Least of al! can it cause ostoniahmcnt, when Buddhist poetry occasionally 
gives to M&ra, the evil enemy, the name of Naciuei, a demon, who is 
Auned in tho Veda as an enemy of Indra (the " (jlatapatha Br," sii, 7, 3, 4, 
also observes in a discussion on Eig V. viii, 14, 13 : piipma vai Nanmcili). 
The nature of the case forbids ns seeking to draw mythological inferences 
from such uses of names as do not fiow from the nature of the being 
of whom they ore used, but are purely secondary. If we speak of the 
Titanic nature ot a Fauat, who would venture to buUd thereon mytho- 
logical theories as to the origin of the Faust legend? The identity of 
the Buddhist Mara with the Mairya (epithet of Ahriman, who tempts 
Zoroaster) of the Avesta is considerately waived by Senart (p. 2<14, note). 
mai after his example by Darmesteter (" Ormazd et Ahriman," p. 202), 




00 FORMATION OF TRADITION. 

as the most characteristic touches of the whole scene/'* It 
does seem to us as if nothing can be less characteristic than 
these very touches ; nothing presents itself to the fancy as 
more natural or necessary for the assaults of bands of demons 
than the accessories of lightnings thunder and darkness.f Or 
are those spirits also, by whom Caliban is tormented on the 
magic island, thunder-demons ? 

The vanquished M&ra is compared to a trunk without hands 
and feet^t and precisely in the same way the cloud-demon 
Vritra, whom Indra crushes with his thunderbolt, is styled in 
the Veda '' footless and handless.** But what is thus said of 
M&ra is nothing more than one in a hundred similes used 
regarding him, and therefore means very little; and, further- 
more, can one not lose hands and feet in any other battles 
beside the battle of the thunder-storm ? 

Bat enough of these vagaries of the sunshine theory. We 
may say in a word : the components which go to make up . the 
history of the attainment of the Buddhahood, and, we may 
add, countless similar narratives in the legends of Buddha, are 
not to be explained by reference to the mythology of the Veda, 
and still less to that of the Edda, but by the dogmatics of the 
Buddhist doctrine of deliverance and the external conditions 
and habits of Buddhist monastic life. 

One clas9 of doubts, however, and this is evident, cannot be 
fully resolved by this method of explanation. In each indi- 
vidual instance in which we have succeeded in showing that 

* Senart, p. 200. 

t It is, perhaps, possible that one or other of these touches may have 
^st receiyed its concrete form in the fables of the battle of the cloudB, 
und may thenceforward have kept its place before the fancy; but that 
would do very little for Senarfs theory. 

t Senart, p. 202. 



EXTESSAL SUKROUNDUiOS OF BUDDHA'S LIFE. 



91 



►ccnrrences narrated of Bnddlia are frequent, or even constant, 
venta in the life of Indian ascetioa generally, one maypro- 
eed to reason further in two different ways. Either, here we 
lave before na credible memoranda, for we see that things 
rere wont to take this course ; or, here we have not credible 
memoranda before us, for, inasmuch as this course is the 
regular course which things took in the period succeeding 
Buddha's death, the legends of Buddha's life must have been 
Kincocted so as to suit this precise course of events and no 
)ther. 

To decide with certainty which of the two lines of reasoning 
B proper to pursue in each case is absolutely impossible. 
BCe who has arrived at this stage of the investigation must 
unreservedly acknowledge the limits which are here placed to 
nquiry, or, at all events, be must acquiesce in making up hia 
mind as to the greater or less degree of probability in the one 
■ the other of the two alternatives, and, in doing so, it will 
10 impossible, of course, quite to exclude the momentum of 
inbjectivo feeling fram the momenta determining this decision. 

If we now abstract from the traditions those of the categories 
indicated, which are wholly uuhistorical, or are at least sns- 
leoted to be of uuhistorical character, we then have left as 
jhe very pith of these stories regarding Buddha a thread of 
'acts, which we may claim to be a perfectly reliable, though, it 
nay be, a very meagre, historical acquisition. 

We know about Buddha's native country and about the 
amily from which be came. We know about his parents, the 
»rly death of his mother, and about her sister, who brought np 
he boy. We know a number of other facts which extend over 
he several parts of his life. It would indeed bo quite incon- 
ceivable, even in India, if the Church which called itself by the 
name of the son of the Sakya house had, within a century 



92 FORMATION OF TBADITION. 

after his death, ceased to preserve, even though veiled in 
legend, a correct memory of the most important names of the 
persons round Buddha, and of certain leading public events in 
his life. Who would admit it possible for the memory of 
Joseph and Mary, of Peter and John, of Judas and Pilate, 
of Nazareth and Golgotha, to be forgotten or supplanted by 
inventions in the early Christian Churches of the first century ? 
Here, if anywhere, it is fair to accept simple facts as such. 

Or are we in error, and is that criticism in the right which 
even here discovers gross deception ? Must not even the 
name of Buddha's native town, Kapilavatthu, excite suspicion? 
The abode of the Kapila, the mythical primitive philosopher 
Kapila, the founder of the S&nkhya school ?* Why should we 
not seek, aye, and find, arcana of mythology, allegory and 
literary history in such a name ? Especially when of opinion, 
as Senart is,t that the very existence itself of such a town is 
not guaranteed to us on any satisfactory evidence whatever. 

Is the evidence really unreliable ? The Chinese pilgrims, 
who travelled in India in the fifth and seventh centuries after 
Christ, saw the ruins of the town. J But, interposes Senart, no 

* The alleged derivation of Buddhism from the S4nkhya philosophy 
plays an important part in many sketches of this as well as of other 
philosophies. I know nothing better to say on this subject than what 
Max Miillerhas already said (" Chips from a German Workshop," i, 226) r. 
** We have looked in vain for any definite similarities between the system 
of Xapila, as known to ns in the Sankhyas^tras, and the Abhidarma, or 
the metaphysics of the Buddhists." 

t P. 512, Cf. p. 380, sec, and also Weber, " Indische literatur 
Geschichte " (2 Auflage), p. 303. Senart finds, as was to be expected, in 
Xapilavatthu, " la viUe, la fortresse de Tatmosph^re." 

X It is much to be regretted that General Cunningham, when he- 
travelled the districts concerned for his archaeological researches, allowed 
himself to be so far led astray by his geographical theories, which are on 
this point decidedly erroneous, as to look for the ruins of Kapilavatthu 



EXTEIiyAL SnitROVNDINGS OF BUDDIWS LIFE. 'JS 

e can tell by looting ab the rains whether the town to which 

ley belong, was called Kapilavatthu. Unfortnnatelyj most 

isuredly no one can tell by a look, although there is always 

me weight to be attached to the local traditions connected 

'ith the place, and in this case also to the monnments still 

'«xtaut in the time of those Chinese pilgrims. The strongest 

confirmation, howerer, of what the Chinese pilgrims state, 

lies in the fact that, on the one hand, the occasional direct 

tatements and indirect hints of the sacred Pali works 

egarding the site of the town, and, on the other hand, the 

■cute of the pilgrims who looked for it, if both be traced 

(n the map of India, coincide exactly : in addition to this, 

bt the very place where, according to this evidence, Buddha's 

lome must have been, there is a small stream which, eren in 

ie present day, bears the same name (Rohini) as was borne by 

I stream in the territory of the Sakyas often mentioned in 

ihe Bnddhist traditions. I hold, stronger indications it is 

mpossible to expect of an early demolished town in a conntry 

a which systematic excavations have not yet been made.* 

Buddha's mother Maya (i.e., "miraculous power") has also 
become a mark for criticism because of her significant name. 
'o Senart, Mfiyft, who dies a few days after tbo birth of her 

1 a wrong place ; a fresh sporeli ia tlio regions clearly indicated by the 
lest« would be moiit dcairablc. 
• Wlien Senart feels the waat of a posilivo authority for tbo exiatcncc 
JfapilavattLu, he has ia his mind the Gilencc of tlie Brabmaniuat 
iterature, especially the great epic poems. Whoever considers at once 
rhat the epies, which were composed ia the more westerly parts of India 
ad the subject-matter of which lies chiefly in the more westcrlf lands, 
!o yield for the geography of the east of the peninsula, and what they do 
u>t yield, will lind their silence very explicable in the matter of this 
lertainly not very important, and moreover very early destroyed, town of 
Lspilavattbu. 



04 FORKATIOX OF TRADITIOX, 

soD^ is the momiDg yaponr, wliich vanislies before the imys of 
the sun. Weber^* who thought at an earlier period that he had 
discovered in Mayans name a reference to the cosmic power of 
'Siijk in the S&nkhja philosophy^ has himself revoked this 
opinion elsewhere at a later period^ remembering that the 
notion of the M4y& belongs^ not to the Sftnkhya school^ bet to 
the Yedanta system ; it maybe added^ that every philosophioa- 
mystical idea of the May& is wholly foreign to the ancient 
Baddhist texts throughout^ and consequently the name of 
Buddha's mother cannot have been invented out of deference 
to any such idea.f 

We must admit that we place greater reliance on tradition. 
We believe that the town of E^apilavatthu had once an 
existence, that Buddha passed his youth there, and that the 
sacred texts name his mother M4ya, not because of any 
mythical or allegorical secrets, but because she was so caDed. 

Having unfolded our estimate of the value of the tradition, 
we now proceed to sketch the history of Buddha's life. 

* '' litemtargescliichte/' I.e. Cf. Xoppen, " Die Eeligion des Buddhm" 
i,76. 

t Even May&*s sister, MahApnjapatl, does not escape the fiite, thst 
enrioos secrets hare been supposed to be veiled in her sigmfieantl j 
sounding name. (Senart, p. 339, note 1.) Senart translates Praj&pati 
'"creatrix," not without himself seeing that this is eontmy to gram- 
matical role. Did the variante Prajavat! (in the " LaL Tist.*^ ^^^fj^J 
noticed hy him, not remind the distinguished PAli scholar, that the word 
does not mean "creatrix" at all, but stands for Prajivati, "prdific 
in descendants?" In P^i paj4pati (=prajavati) is a very eommon 
appellation for " wife." See Childers, sub. verb, and ** Mahivagga," i, 14, 
1, 2 ; X, 2, 3, 8. The meaning of the proper name is therefore quite 
of a harmless nature. 



CHAPTER II. 



Bctddha's Youth. 

The noble boy Siddhattha was born in the country and the- 
tribe of the Sakyas (''The Powerful '') somewhere about the 
middle of the sixth century before Christ. Better known than 
this name which he seems to have borne in the family circle, 
are other appellations. As a preaching monk wandering 
through India he was to his contemporaries ''The ascetic 
Grotama " — this surname the Sakyas had, in accordance with 
the custom of Indian noble families, borrowed from one of the 
ancient Vedic bard-families ; to us no name for this renowned 
of all Indians is so familiar as that with which the disciples 
who accepted his faith have expressed his authoritative position 
as the overthrower of error, as the discemer of the truth which 
gives deliverance, the name Buddha, i.e., "the enlightened,*^ 
''the knower.'' 

We can point out the native land of Buddha on the map of 
India with tolerable accuracy. 

Between the Nepalese lower range of the Himalaya and the 
middle part of the course of the Eapti,* which runs through the 
north-eastern part of the province of Oudh, there stretches 
a strip of level, fruitful land,t some thirty English miles broad, 

* This river often appears in the Buddhist literature as Acirayati. 

t The Chinese pilgrim Hiouen Thsang (about 650 a.c.) says of 
Buddha's native state (St. Jolien's Translation, ii, 130) : '* La terre 
est grasse et fertile ; les semailles et les r^coltes ont lieu a des ^poques 
rdgoli^res ; les saisons ne se d^rangent jamais ; les moeurs des habitants 
sent donees et faciles." 



DG BUDDHA'8 YOUTH. 

'well-watered by the numerous streams that issue from the 
Himalayas. Here lay the not very extensive territory over 
which the Sakyas claimed supremacy and dominion. On the 
east the Rohini separated their lands from their neighbours ; to 
this day this stream has preserved the name which it bore 
more than two thousand years ago.* On the west and south 
the rule of the Sakyas extended quite up^ or nearly so^ to the 

Rapti.f 

Scarcely anywhere does the appearance of a country depend 
so completely on the activity or sloth of its inhabitants, as in 
these parts of India adjoining the Himalayas. The mountains 
send forth year by year inexhaustible volumes of water : 
whether for the benefit or for the destruction of the country 
depends solely on man's activity. Tracts of land which in 
times of unrest and thriftlessness are a swampy* wilderness, 
the homes of pestilential vapours, may by a few years of 
regular and steady industry pass into a state of high and 
prosperous culture, and, if the causes of decline set in anew, 
return' still more quickly to the state of a wilderness. 

In the time of Sakya sovereignty this land must have been 
highly cultivated, a condition which it again attained under 
the government of the great emperor Akbar, and which, after 
long periods of protracted disquiet and 6ore decay, it is just 
now beginning once more to approach under the beneficent 

* The Echini falls into the Eapti near Goruckpore, some hundred 
English miles north of Benares. 

t The territory of the Sakyas included, as far as it appears, according 
to the present divisions of the land, approximately the following circles 
(pergnnnahs) belonging to the Goruckpore district: Binayakpore, 
Bansee, and the western half of pergunnah Haveli. For an exact 
estimate of the extent of this territory the data at hand are obviously 
insufficient ; I might quite roughly estimate it at nine-tenths the area of 
Yorkshire. 



LLVI> Of THE SAKrAS, 



1)7 



ihand of the British administration, which is intent on sup- 
plying the land with the necessary working power.* 

Between tall forests of sal trees yellow rice-fielda spread 
bat in uniform richness. The rice plant, which tho Buddhist 
texts here mention, constitutes to-day, as in ancient times, the 
chief crop of this country, where the water of the rainy season 
and of inundations remains long standing on the rich soil of 
the low lying llatsj and renders in great meaanre superfluous 
that excessively troublesome artificial in'igation which is else- 
where necessary for rice-t Between the rice-fields we may here 
and there place villages in the days of the Sakyas such as exist 
to-day, hidden among the rich, dark-green foliage of mangos 
Bud tamarinds, which surround tho village site. In the back- 
ground o£ the picture, over the black masses of the mountains 
of Nepal, rise tho towering snow-capt summits of the Hima- 
layas. 

The kingdom of the Sakyas was one of those small 
aristocratic governments, a number of which had maintained 
themselves on the outskirts of tho greater Indian monarchies. 
We shall not be far astray if wo picture to ourselves the 
Saky&s as the forerunners in some fashion of such Eajput 
Families as have in later times, by the aid of armed bands, held 
their ground against neighbouring rajas. J Of these greater 

* Cf. the deseriptiona of iJuchanan, who trnveUed ia the country about 
1810 (MontgomeryMartin, ii,292, 402, etc.), with A. Swinton's "Manual 
of Statistics of the district of Goruckpore " (Allahabad, 18G1), and the 
official " Statiattcal description and historical account of tho 
Gorakhpore district" (Allahabad, 1880), pp. 287-330. 

t Inter alia, the importauce of rice cultivation to tho Sakyas ia evident 
from the name of Buddha'a father, " pure rice," probably also from the 
Dtherwise Beemingly fictitious names of his four brothers ; clear-rice, 
atroii>;-rice, white-rice, and immeasarable-rice. 

1 An instructive picture of those occurrences ia given by Sir W, H. 
Bleeman, In bis " Journey through the Kingdom of Oude," for inat. 
■vol. i, p. 240. 



98 BUDDHA'S YOUTH. 

monarchies there stood in closest proximity to the Sakyas^ the 
powerful kingdom of Kosala (corresponding pretty nearly with 
the Oadh of to-day)^ adjoining it on the soath and west. The 
Sahyas looked on themselves as Kosalas^ and the kings of 
Kosala claimed certain rights oyer them^ though probably 
merely honorary rights ; later on they are said to have bronght 
the Sakya-land wholly within their power^ and to have 
exterminated the ruHng fan.ay.» 

But though the Sakyas occupied but an insignificant 
position in respect of military and political power among their 
neighbours^ the haughty spirit which prevailed in their ancient 
family was characteristic of the Sakya line. Brahmans who 
had entered the council chamber of the Sakyas could testify 
to the little notice which these worldly nobles, who derived 
their nobility from the king Okk&ka (Ikshvaku), renowned in 
song, were inclined to take of the claims of spiritual digna- 
taries. 

Of the wealth also of the Sakyasf our authorities speak 
frequently. They talk of them as ''a family blessed with 
prosperity and great opulence/' and mention the gold which 
they possess, and which the land they rule produces. The 
chief source of their wealth was undoubtedly rice cultivation; 

* The Kosala king to whom this act is ascribed, is YidAdabha, the son 
of Buddha's contemporary and patron, Fasenadi. Though later legends 
represent the Sakyas as having been destroyed during Buddha's life-time, 
tbis is not, as far as I know, supported by any proof contained in the 
sacred Pali texts. Moreover the history of Buddha's relics (" Mahaparin," 
S. p. 68) clearly states that the Sakya dynasty survived Buddha. 

t Indeedf it must not be forgotten that the value of these statements 
is not quite indisputable; inasmuch as the object was to represent 
Buddha's separation from his kin, as being, from a worldly point of view, 
a very great sacrifice, the wealth which he renounced must have been 
painted in the strongest colours possible. This is to be noticed also in 
the biography of Mahavtra, Buddha's contemporary, the founder of 
the Jaina sect. 



FAinLT OP TEE SAKTAS. 'J9 

and the advantageous position of their territory, commercially, 
■ which had been formed, as it were, for a medium of communi- 
cation between the moantain range and the Gangetic plains, 
cannot hare been unavuiled of. 

A widespread tradition represents Baddha as having been a 
ting's son. At the head of this aristocratic community there 
must certainly have been some one leading man, appointed, 
we know not by what rules, with the title of king, which can 
scarcely in this case have indicated more than the position 
of primus inter pares. Bat the idea that Buddha's father, 
Bnddhodana, enjoyed this royal dignity is quite foreign to 
the oldest forms in which the traditions regarding the family 
are presented to us ; rather, we have nothing more or less to 
contemplate in Suddhodana than one of the groat and wealthy 
landowners of the Sakya race, whom later legends first trans- 
formed into the " great king Suddhodana." 

The mother of the child, Mayji, also a member of the Sakja 
stock, died soon — seven days, it is said — after the birth of the 
, boy. Her sister, Mah&pajSpati, another wife of Suddhodana, 
filled for him the place of mother. 

Traditional story represents with apparent truth that the 
young noble passed his youth iu the capital of the Sakya realm, 
in Kapilavatthu {"red place," or red earth).* This town, 
■wholly unknownf to Brahmanical literature, cannot have been 
of much importance, although in an old Buddhist dialogue it is 



• Montg. Martin, i, 293, says of Goruckporo district : " No soil of n. 
Ted colour wos observed on the surface, although earths of this kind may 
te procured by digging." This is quite sufficient, if we consider tlic; 
changes eansed in the earth's surface by inundations in tie course 
of more than two thousand years, to esplain the name Eapilavatthu. 
Swinton (p. 33) mentions " red spots resembling carbonate of iron," 
in the sandy beds under the surface of the yellow earth. 

t jVnt^a, note p. 93. 

7* 



100 BUDDHA'S YOUTH. 

spoken of as a densely populated place, in the narrow streets 
of which were thronging elephants^ carts^ horses^ and men. 

We know scarcely anything of Buddha's childhood. We 
hear of a step-brother and of a step-sister renowned for her 
beauty, children of Mahdpaj&pati. What was the difference 
of age between them and their brother, is not known. 

In the training of nobles in those lands which were but 
slightly attached to Brahmanism, more attention was paid tO' 
martial exercises than to knowledge of the Yeda. Buddhists 
have not attributed Yedic scholarship to their master. Many 
a day may have been passed by the boy out of doors on his 
father's estate, indulging in meditations, as an old text describes 
him to us, in a field under the cool shade of a fragrant jambu/ 
tree (rose-apple). 

Among the opulent and gentle youth of that age, it was 
indispensable to the comfort of a style of life in keeping with 
their dignity, to have three palaces, which were constructed to 
be occupied by turns corresponding to the changes of winter, 
summer, and rains. Tradition states that the coming Buddha 
passed his early years in three such palaces, a life the back- 
ground of which was the same scenery, the wonderful 
splendour of which then surrounded, and, still unchanged, now 
surrounds, the habitations of Indian nobles; shady gardens 
with lotus-pools on which the gently waving, gay-coloured 
lotus-flowers gleam like floating flower beds, and in the evening » 
difiuse their fragrance afar, and outside the town the pleasure 
grounds to which the walks or elephant-rides lead, where rest 
and solitude await the comer, far from the bustle of the town, 
beneath the shade of tall and thick foliaged mango, pipal 
and sal-trees. 

We are told that the coming Buddha was married — ^but 
whether to one or several wives is not known — and that he had 
a son,E&hula, who afterwards became a member of his religious 



CHILDHOOD ASD MASEIAOE. 



101 



order. These statements we can the leas regard as concoctions, 
the more casoally and incidentally they meet ua in the older 
traditions, the person of Rahnla or of his mother* being there 
employed neither for didactic purposes nor to introduce pathetic 
fiitnations. If one takes into account the part which the 
obligation of austere chastity plays in the ethical views and 
the monastic rules of the Buddhists, he will understand that 
2iadwe before us here not facts but gratuitous inventions, the 
tendency of the fabricators of the history must have been 
jrather to throw a veil over a real existing marriage of Buddha 
than to invent one which had no existence. 

These scantjjtraces exhaust all that is handed down to us, 
jcredible concerning Buddha's early life. We must forboai* 
asking the question, from what quarter and in what form the 
■germs of those thoughts entered his soul which drove him to 
change home for exile and the plenty of hia palaces for the 
poverty of. a mendicant. 

We can very readily understand how, in the oppressive 
monotony of idle ease and satiated enjoyment, there may have 
-come directly over an earnest and vigorous nature a mood of 
restlessness, the thirst for a career and a struggle for the 
.lighest aims, and the despair at the same time to find anything 
iio aasnage that thirst in the empty world of transitory pleasure. 
Who knows anythtng^of the form which these thoughts may 
have assumed in the mind of the youth, and how far the 
impulse which pervaded that age, and led men and women to 
leave home for an ascetic life, acting from without upon those 
inner pre-dispositions, may have influenced him also ? 

Her name appears'to have been unknown to the ancient Chureli. 
Copious inventions of later times first filled upthese gaps in various ways, 
Cf. Davids' and my notea to our English translation of the " JlaliAvaega," 



102 BUDDEA'B TOUTU. 

m 

We Iiaye in one of the holy texts a description which Aowb 
in bare simplicity^ how the early disciples represented to them- 
selves the awakening of the fundamental ideas of their faith in 
the mind of their master. 

Buddha is speaking to his disciples of his youths and after 
he has spoken of the abundance which surrounded him in his 
palaces^ he goes on to say : 

''With such wealth was I endowed^ my disciples^ and in 
such great magnificence did I live. Then these thoughts arose 
within me. ' A weak-minded^ everyday man, although he is 
himself liable to decay and is not free from the power of old 
age, feels hori-or, revulsion and disgust, if he sees another 
person in old age : the horror which he then feels recoils on 
himself. I also am subject to decay and am not free from the 
power of old age. Should I also, who am subject to decay 
and am not free from the power of old age, feel horror, 
revulsion, and disgust, if I see another in old ^e ? This- 
would not be becoming to me/ While I thus reflected, my 
disciples, in my own mind, all that buoyancy of youth, which 
dwells in the young/sank within me. A weak-minded every- 
day man, though he be himself liable to sickness, and is not 
free from the power of disease,^' and so on — ^then the same 
train of thought, which has been stated regarding old age and 
youth, follows in reference to disease and health, and then in 
regard to death and life. '' While I, my disciples,^^ thus ends 
this passage, '' thus reflected in my mind, all that spirit of life 
which dwells in life, sank within me.'' 

A later age desired.to see illustrated in concrete occurrences^ 
how for the first time and with impressive power the thoughts 
of old age, disease, and death crept over the young man, 
healthy and in the freshness of life, and how he was directed 
by some significant example to that path which leads away 



DEPARTURE PROM HOME. 



lo:: 



beyond the power of all suffering. Thua was invented) or 
ratber transferred to the youth of Gotama, a legend which was 
narrated of one of the legendary Buddhas of bygone ages—the 
&mUiar history of the four drives of the yonth to the garden 
ontside the town, during which the pictures of the imper- 
manonce of everything earthly presented themselves to him 
one after the other, in the form of a helpless old man, a sick 
person, and a dead body; and at last a religious mendicant 
with shaven head and wearing yellow garments meets him, a 
picture of peace and of deliverance from all pain of impcr- 
manence. In that way later tradition concocted this narrative 
preparatory to the flight of Gotama from his home. Of all this 
the early ages knew nothing. 

When Gotama left home to lead a religious life, he was, 
according to good tradition, twenty-nine years old. 

He must have been no mean poet in whose hand the history 
of this flight grew into that poem, rich in the splendour of 
Indian colouring, as we read ifc in the later hooka of legends. 

The king's son returns from that drive during which, by the 
appearance of a religious mendicant, thoughts of a lifo of 
peaceful renunciation had come homo to him. When he 
mounts his chariot, the birth of a son is announced to him. 
He says : " Rfihula* is bom to me, a fetter has been forged for 
me "—ft fetter which tries to bind him to the home-life from 
trhich he is struggling to part. A princess, who is standing on 
the balcony of the palace, beholds him as he approaches the 
city on his chariot, diffusing a beaming radiance. She breaks 
ont at the sight of him into these words : " Happy the repose 
of the mother, Bappy tho repose of the father, happy the 
repose of tho wife, whose ho is, such a husband !" The young 
* la the name Hahnla there seEnns to be an allusion to B^u, the sun 
■nd moon subduing (darkenini;) demon. 



104 BUDDHA'S YOUTH. 

man hears her words and thinks to himself: " well might she 
say that a blessed repose enters the heart of a mother^ when 
she beholds such a son^ and blessed repose enters the heart of 
a &ther and the heart of a wife. But whence comes the repose 
which brings happiness to the heart V And he gives the 
answer himself : " when the fire of Inst is extingnished^ when 
the fire of hatred and infatuation is extinguished^ when 
ambition, error, and aU sins and sorrows are extinguished, then 
the heart finds happy repose." 

In his palace the prince was suironnded by beautiful, gafly- 
attired handmaids, who sought to dissipate his thoughts with 
music and dance : but he neither looks upon nor listens to them, 
and soon falls into sleep. He wakes up at night and sees by 
the light of the lamps those dancing-girls wrapt in slumber, 
some talking in their sleep, some with running mouths, and of 
others again the clothes have become disarranged and exposed 
repulsive deformities of the body. At this sight it was to him 
as if he were in a burial-place full of disfigured corpses, as 
if the house around him were in flames. ^^ Alas ! danger 
surrounds me," he cried, ^^alas ! distress surrounds me ! Now 
is the time come for me to go on the great pilgrimage." 
Before hastening away, he thinks of his new-bom son : '' I will 
see my child." He goes to his wife^s chamber, where she is 
sleeping on a flower-strewn couch, with her hand spread over 
the child's head. Then the thought occurs to him: ''If I 
move her hand from his head to clasp my child, she will awake. 
When I shall have become Buddha, I shall return and see 
my son." His trusty steed Kanthaka is waiting outside, and 
thus the prince flies, seen by no human eye, away from wife 
and child and from his kingdon, out into the night, to find rest 
for his soul and for the world and the gods, and behind him 
follows Mara, the tempter, shadow-like, and watches till 



ZEPARTCRE FROM HOME. 



105 



f>crcliance a moment may come, vihen a thoaght of last or 
cmrighteonsness, entering tte straggling soul, will give him 
power over the hated enemy. 

That is poetry ; now listen to the bare prose, in which an 
ilder ago speaks of the flight, or rather of the departure of 
Gotama, from his home : 

' The ascetic Gotama has gone from home into homelessness, 
vhile still yoimg, young in years, in the bloom of youthful 
strength, in the first freshness of life. The ascetic Gotama, 
although his parents did not wish it, although they shed tears 
and wept, has had his Iiair and beard shaved, has put on yellow 
garments, and has gone from his home into homelessness," 

Or, as it is put in another place : " Distressing is life at home, 

state of impurity : freedom is in leaving home : while he 
reflected thus, he left his home," 

It is necessary, in the face of the highly coloured poetical 
form into which later ages have thrown tho history of Buddha's 
departure from Kapilavatthu, to remember these unadorned 
Jragments of the little which older generations knew or desired 
io know of these things. 

After the early life passed at home comes the period of 
homelessness, of wandering ascetic life. Only in hia case who 
has severed the ties of home and family, can the effort to attain 
eternal blessings lead to success ; such was the conception of 
that age. 

Seven years of inquiry are stated to have passed fi-om tho 
lay when Gotama left hia native town, till the consciousness of 
realization was imparted to him, till he felt himself to he the 
Bnddha, the deliverer, and the preacher of deliverance to the 
worlds of gods and men. 

He trusted himself during this period of seven years at first 
io the guidance of two successive spiritual teachers, to find 



106 BUDDHA^S YOUTH. 

what the language of that time termed ^' the highest state of 
sublime repose,'' the " uuoriginated, the Nirv&na, the eternal 
state/' The path, in which these teachers directed him, must 
have been grounded on the production of pathological conditions 
of self-concentration, such as have in later Buddhism played a 
not unimportant part : conditions in which, by a long-continuei 
observance of certain bodily discipline, the spirit seeks to divest 
itself of all concrete subject-matter, of every entity, of every 
conception, and, as is added, even of conceptionlessness. 

Then he left these teachers unsatisfied, and travelled 
through the land of Magadha until he came to the town of 
Uruvela.* An old narrative puts these words into his mouth 
when he speaks of this wandering: "Then, O disciples, I 
thought within myself : truly this is a charming spot of earth, 
a beautiful forest : clear flows the river, with pleasant bathing- 
places, and fair lie the villages round about, to which one can 
go : here are good quarters for one of high resolve, who is in. 
search of salvation." 

Theii in the woods of Uruvela Gotama is said to have lived 
many years in the severest discipline. It is described how he 
sat there, his tongue pressed against his palate, resolutely 
^'checking, repressing, chastening" his aspirations, waiting 
the moment, when the supernatural illumination should come 
upon him. It comes not. He struggles for a still more 
perfect performance by imposing the greatest strains on his 
physical frame : he holds his breath : he denies himself 
nourishment. Five other ascetics are living in his neighbour- 
hood : in astonishment at the resolution with which he pursues 
his mortifications, they wait to see will he be made partaker of 

* Buddha Gaya, south of Patna. The oft-mentioned river Neranjarik 
is there called Phalgu now. Of. ConningLam, " Ancient Geography of 
India," p. 457. 



EERMIT LIFE. 



107 



the longed-for enlightenment, in order that they may tread as 
tis disciples the path of deliverance indicated by him. Hia 
body becomes attennated by aelf-infiicted pain, bub he finds 
himself no nearer the goal. He sees that self-mortifications 
cannot lead to enlighteumeut : so be takes nourishment again 
freely to regain his former strength. Then his five companioua 
abandon him : he seems to them to have deserted bis own 
cause, and there appears to be nothing moro to hope for or of 
liim. So Grotama remains alone. 

One night, tho old traditions narrate, the deciaive turning 
point came, the moment wherein was vouchsafod to tho sookor 
tho certainty of discovery. Sitting under the tree, since then 
named the Tree of Knowledge, ho went through successively 
purer and purer stages of abstraction of consciousness, until 
the seuse of omniscient illmninatiou came over him : in all* 
piercing intuition he pressed on to apprehend tho waiiderings 
of spirits in the mazes of transmigration, and to attain the 
knowledge of the sources whence flows the aufEering of the 
world, and of the path which leads to the extinction of this 
Buffering. 

■' When I apprehended this," he is reported to have said of 
this moment, "and when I beheld this, my soul was released 
from the evil of desire, released from the evil of earthly 
'existence, released from the evil of error, released from tho 
jevil of ignorance. In the released awoke the knowledge of 
release ; extinct is re-birth, finished the sacred course, duty 
done, no more shall I return to this world ; this I knew." 

Thia moment the Buddhist regard as the great turning- 
point in hia life and in the life of the worlds of gods and men : 
the ascetic Gotama had become the Buddha, the awakened, tho 
enlightened. That night which Buddha passed under the tree 



108 BVDDHA'8 YOUTH. 

of knowledge^* on the banks of the river Neranjar&^ is the 
.«acred night of the Buddhist world. 

Thus the holj text narrates the history of the inner struggles 
of Gotama and his untiring pursuit of knowledge and peace. 
Is there any historical fact in this narrative ? 

We are here face to face with a question^ on * which the 
analysis of the historical critic is unable to return a clear and 
bold verdict, a decisive Yes or No. 

The character of the sources does not of itself determine 
whether we here have historiccJ fact or legend before us. In 
the authorities unquestionable truth is mixed up with just as 
unquestionable romance : the history of the attainment of 
Bnddhahood does not bear any direct traces of being either the 
one or the other. 

So much is clear that, granted even that Buddha had not 
-experienced, and had not even professed to have experienced, 
something analogous to this, still the existence of this narrative 
a,mong the groups of his disciples can be readily understood. 
If he was the Buddha, if he possessed sacred knowledge, he 
must at some place and at some definite moment have become 
the Buddha, have attained that sacred knowledge, and before 
this moment there must have been — ^legend- weaving fancy 
<;ould scarcely have overlooked this conclusion — ^a period in 
which the consciousness that he was still far from his goal, 
■dominated strongly and painfully. What can this period of 

* Cunningham ("Archseol. Ercports," i, 5) says of the pipal tree 
(Ficus religiosa) at Buddha Gaya, which is looked upon as being this tree : 
^* The celebrated Bodhi tree still exists, but is very much decayed ; one 
large stem, with three branches to the westward, is still green, but the 
other branches are barkless and rotten. The tree must have been 
renewed frequently, as the present pipal is standing on a terrace at 
•least thirty feet above the level of the surrounding country." 



TURHma POINT OF LIFE. lOff 

Tiootless search have been like ? At every step the disciples 
■of Bnddha had to contend against the tendencies of ascetics 
who expected to attain quietude through fasting and severe 
bodily discipline. It is not surprising that this opposition in 
which they felt themselves to be to these tendencies should have 
influeDced the belief of the early Church regarding Buddha's 
own previous history : he, too, must, before he became par- 
taker of the imperishable treasure of true deliverance, have 
sought for salvation in the nmzes of bodily discipline ; he must 
have surpassed all that Brahmans and devotees had accom- 
plished before him in the way of self-mortification, and he 
iDQst have realized for himself the fruitlessness of such a 
course, until he at last, turning from the falso to the true path, 
became the Bnddha, 

It is, therefore, evident that tho narrative concerned maij be 
& myth : the conditions, which suffice to make the concoction 
ef such a myth comprehensible, certainly exist. And this 
possibility of a purely mythical conception gains further 
Cupport by the undoubted mythical character of the occurrences 
yet to be discussed, which followed on the attainment of 
Baddbahood. 

But showing that a thing may be a myth is not equivalent 
to showing that it is a myth, and I am inclined to think that 
that which can be urged in favour of an opposite conception is 
ty no means without weight. 

The coming of such a sudden turning-point in Buddha's 
inner life corresponds much too closely with what in all times 
natures have actually experienced under similar con- 
ions, for us not to be inclined to believe in such an 

iorrence. In the most widely different periods of history 
tiie notion of a revolution or change of the whole man 
:ecting itself in one moment meets us in many forms : 



110 BUDDHA*8 YOUTH. 

a day and hour it mast be possible to determine^ in wbick 
the nnsaved and unenlightened becomes a saved and enlightened 
man : and if men hope and look for such a sadden^ and pro- 
bably also violent^ breaking though of the sool to the lights 
they realize it in &ct. Within the Christian Church we have 
the Methodists especially^ but not they alone^ who bear testi- 
mony to this. Furthermore, phenomena of this kind are not 
confined by any means to persons of a vulgar type^ living in a 
dull religious atmosphere. On the contrary^ natures which are 
endowed with the keenest spiritual sensibility^ with the most 
versatile power of imagination^ are especially susceptible of 
such experiences. A flash of thought^ a sudden excitement of 
warm emotion or vivid imagination, or a moment of tranquil 
brsathing-time following on times of internal strife^ is meta- 
morphosed for them into that opening of the heart, or that call 
by divine omnipotence, for which they were consciously or 
unconsciously waiting, and which iip sufficient to give a new 
turn to their whole life. 

In the age of which the sacred writings of the Buddhists 
give us a picture, and, we may add with probability, in 
Buddha's own time, the belief in a sudden illumination of the 
8onl, in the fact of an internal emancipation perfecting itself 
in one moment, was universally prevalent : people looked for 
the "deliverance from death," and told one another with 
beaming countenance that the deliverance firom death had 
been found: people asked how long it was till one striving 
for salvation is able to attain his goal, and gave one another to 
understand, with and without figure or parable, that of course 
the day and hour, in which the fruit of immortality will be 
given to man, are not in his power, but still the Master 
promised to his follower that, if he trod the right path, 
^^ after a short time that for which noble youths leave their 



TVRNINa POINT OF LIFE. Ill 

liomes to lead a pilgrim lifcj tlie highest achievement of 
Teligious effort, would be vouchsafed to him, that he would 
yet in this life apprehend the truth itself, and see it face to 
ice." This visionary grasp of truth some pursued hy morti- 
"Bcaiion, others by abstraction of the mind, pushed to the 
Dtmost limit and accompanied by long- protracted retention 
of the body in fixed postures, all waiting the moment in which 
■the attainment of their aim would be clearly realized by them 
with absolute certainty. When any one came to regard his 
vatural state as impermanent and dark, that to which he 
aspired, and which he, therefore, expected finally to actually 
realize, could not but appear to him to be a condition of purer 
internal illumination and self-knowledge, and with this con- 
iilition of pure internal illumination was combined the 
consciouenesa of his own power to look, by visionary 
iatuitioD, through the whole concatenation of the universe. 

"We can scarcely doubt that such a mode of viewing things 
prevailed among religious inquirers at Buddha's time. Who- 
r left his home and became a mendicant did so looking for 
the coveted fruit of enhghtenment. Way we not also surmise 
that similar expectations filled the heart of the Sakya yonth, 
when he left his native town? That he then experienced 
within himself those struggles, those combats between hope 

md doubt, of which the history of those who have paved new 
paths for religious feeling and thought have so much to say ? 
*rbat after periods of intense mental, and why not also bodily, 
anguish there arose in him at a particular moment the feeling 
of clearer rest and internal certainty, and he laid hold on this 

B the longed-for illumination, as a token of deliverance come ? 

•hat he thenceforward felt himself to be the Buddha, the one 
called by a universal law to be a follower of the Buddhas of 



112 BUDDEA'S YOUTH. 

bygone ages^ and determined to bring to others the blessing- 
which had been imparted to him ? 

If the process was anything like this^ it cannot but have 
followed that Buddha at a later time communicated to the 
disciples^ to whom he pointed out the path to holiness^ these 
inner experiences also, through which he was conscious of 
haying himself attained his goal : and though the memory of 
these communications may have received in the Church in the 
course of time a stamp of scholastic dogmatism, yet their 
original character must always have shone through. In this 
sense it is quite possible that this narrative may cover actual 

fact. 

The historical inquirer cannot create certainties where there 
are only potentialities. Let each individual come to a con- 
clusion, or refrain from coming to a conclusion, as he thinks 
porper ; let me be allowed, for my part, to declare my belief 
that, in the narrative of how the Sakya youth became the 
Buddla, theie is really an element of historical memory. 



CHAPTER III. 



BjSaiNNING OF THE TeACHEB's CaBEEB. 

With this decisive tnrmng-point begins in our authorities 

a long-connected narrative.* This gives us a picture of how 

the early Church represented to itself Buddha^s first public 

appearance^ the winning of the first converts, and the triumph 

over the first opponents. They were still far from thinking of 

an attempt to delineate a continuous sketch of Buddha's life> 

but these first days of his public life, as well as his last days, 

were invested with an especial interest, and therefore this part 

of his life has already in very ancient times — ^for the narrative 

bears unmistakably the stamp of high antiquity — assumed the 

form of a fixed tradition. Who has not experienced in his 

own case that in long, monotonous periods of time, in which 

reminiscences float promiscuously and blur one another, the 

early beginnings, the days of freshness and self -adjustment,. 

usually preserve themselves clear in the memory ? 

We cannot read the beginning of the narrative referred to* 
without calling to mind the story in our gospels. There Jesus,. ' 
before He begins openly to teach, spends forty days fasting in 
the wilderness, '^ and was tempted of Satan ; and He was with 

* "Mahayagga/' i, 1-24 (pp. 1-44 of my Edition). 

8 . 



lU BEQIimjNQ OF THE TEACHER'S CAREER. 

the wild beasts ; and -the angels' ministered anto Him/' So 
Baddha also^ before he sets out to propagate his doctrine, 
remains four times seven days* fasting in the neighbourhood 
of the tree of knowledge, *' enjoying the happiness of deliver- 
ance/' The idea which underlies this is readily understood : 
after a severe struggle the victory has been won : it is natural 
that the victor, before he betakes himself to new conflicts, 
should pause to enjoy what he had won, that the delivered, 
before he preaches deliverance to others, should himself taste 
its happiness. 

Buddha spends the first seven days, wrapt in meditation, 
under the sacred tree itself. Daring the night following the 
seventh day, he causes his mind to pass through the 
concatenation of causes and effects, from which the pain of 
existence arises : '^ From ignorance come conformations ;t 
from conformations comes consciousness '' — and so on through 

* The oldest form of the tradition in the " Mah&yagga." Later narratiYes 
give seven times seven days. The oldest tradition specifically states that 
Baddha at the end of the seventh day went from the tree of knowledge 
to the fig-tree Ajapala (" tree of the goat-herds '*) ; the later narrative 
here inserts three periods of seven days. The patristic commentator 
Baddhagoshais naturally anxious to explam away the difEerence hetweeii 
the two narratives. '* It is as when one says : after he has eaten, he lays 
himself down to rest. Thereby it is not implied that he lies down without 
first washing his hands, rinsing oat his mouth, having gone to his couch» 
having indulged in any conversation whatever — ^but it is only meaiit to 
convey : after dinner-time he lies down, he does not omit to lie down. 
So here also it is not meant : after he had risen from this meditation he 
immediately went forward, but it merely means : after he had risen, he 
went forward later on, he did not omit to go forward. But what did the 
Exalted One do immediately before he went forward ? He tarried other 
three times seven days in the neighbourhood of the tree of knowledge,** 
and so on. 

t We shall have to return later on to these propositions, in the review of 
the Buddhist doctrine. 



, THE FOUR-TIMEa SEVEN DAYS. 115 

long eeriea of intorvening links, unbil, " from desire comoa 
clinging (to existence) ; from clinging (to existence) cornea 
"being : from being cornea birth : from birth come old age and 
death, pain and mourning, suffering, sorrow, and despair." 
But if the first canae be removed, on which this chain o£ effects 
haags, ignorance becomes extinct, and everything which arises 
from it collapses, and all suffering is overcome. " Realizing this 
the Exalted One at that time spoke these words: — 

'When the conditions (of eriatence) reveal tliemaelTes 
To the ardent, contemplating Brahman, 
Then must every doubt give way, 
When the origin of all becoming is revealed to him.' 

"Three times, in the three watches of the night, he caused 
lis mind to pass through all this series of causes and effects : 
■at last he spoke thus : — 

' When the condition? (of existence) reveal themselves 
To the ardent, contemplating Erahman, 
He casts to earth the tempter's hosta, 
Like the aun, which ahcds its light through space.' 

" Then Buddha rose, when the seven days had passed, from 
the meditation in which he had been absorbed, left the spot 
nnder the tree of knowledge, and went to the fig-tree Ajapfilit 
(tree of the goat-herds)." 

Another and probably later cast of this tradition here inserts 
AQ account of a temptation : just as on Jeans also Satan mado 
an attack, when He spent those forty days in the wilderness, 
trying, before He should enter on His career, to make Him 
nnfaithfol to His calling as the Saviour.* 

• It eeems scarcely neceaaary to observe that in both cases the sama 
obrioua motives have given rise to the corresponding narratives ; tha 
notion of oa inSuence exerted by Buddhiat tradition on Chiiatian cannot 



116 BEGINNING OF THE TEACHER'S CAMEEB. 

It would be going too fer if we were to suppose that there 
is preserved to us in the Buddhist tradition the memory of 
single and specific visions of good and evil spirits, with which 
Buddha professed to have had intercourse : but it is beyond 
doubt that he himself and his disciples shared the beliefs of all 
the Indian world in such appearances, and that they were 
convinced that they had seen the like. 

M&ra, the tempter, knows that fear or lust can have no 
further influence over Buddha : he had vanquished all earthly 
thoughts and emotions under the tree of knowledge. To undo 
this victory is impossible, but there is one thing stiU left 
which the tempter may effect : he may induce Buddha, to turn 
his back at this stage on earthly life and to enter into Nirv&na. 
Then he alone would be delivered from M&ra's power: he 
would not have proclaimed the doctrine of dehverance to 
men, 

^^ Then came " — thus Buddha afterwards relates the history 
of this temptation to his disciple Ananda — " Mara, the wicked 
one, unto me. Coming up to me, he placed himself at my side : 
standing at my side, Ananda, M&ra, the wicked one, spake 
unto me, saying: 'Enter now into Nirv&na, Exalted One, 
enter Nirv3<na, Perfect One; now is the time of Nirvfl.na arrived 
for the Exalted One/ As he thus spake, I replied, Ananda, 
to Mdra, the wicked one, saying : ' I shall not enter Nirv&na, 
thou wicked one, until I shall have gained monks as my 
disciples, who are wise and instructed, intelligent hearers of 
the word, acquainted with the doctrine, experts in the Doctrine 
and the second Doctrine, versed in the ordinances, walking in 
the Law, to propagate, teach, promulgate, explain, formulate, 

be entertained. The Buddhist history of the temptation is to be found 
in the " Mahaparinibbana Sutta/'p. 30, seq., and is inserted in the context 
of the whole continuous narrative in the " Lalita Vistara," p. 489. 



HISTORY OF TSE TEMPTATION. 1I7 

analyze, what they have heard from, their master, to annihilate 
and extemmiate by their knowledge any heresy which arises, 
and preach the doctrine with wonder-working, I shall not enter 
Nirvilna, thou wicked one, until I shall have gained nnna as 
my disciples, who are both wise and instructed (and here, 
after the fashion of the Buddhist ecclesiastical style, what has 
been said of monks follows about nuns, lay brothers, and 
lay BJsters). I shall not enter Nirvana, thou wicked one, 
until the life of holiness which I point out, has been successful, 
grown in favour, and extended among all mankind, and is in 
TOgne and thoroughly made known to all men.' " 
"We return to the older version of the narrative.* 
Buddha still tarries thrice seven days in various places in 
the neighbourhood of the tree of knowledge "enjoying the 
happiness of deliverance." A sort of overture is here played 
to the great drama of which he is to bo the hero : significant 
typical occurrences foreshadow the future. The meeting with a 
of haughty air," causes us to think of a struggle 
with and conquest of Brahmaniam, "We hear nothing of the 
taunt with which that Brahman may have accosted Buddha : it 

• In addition to the external ground of the history of tliia temptation 
being ■wanting in the " Mahavagga," there is still another deeper con- 
Bidention which determineB me to believe that it was excluded from th.t 
older traditions. We shall afterwards come to the history of Buddha's 
internal etra^^gle wLelher he Ehould preach Ids doctrine and not rather 
enjoy the acquired deliverance himself alone : Brahma's appearance 
solved the doubt. This history conveys no other thought but the same 
which underlies the narrative of Mitra: Buddha's struggle with the 
posdbility of permitting the sacred knowledge which ho had won, to 
l>eiLeGt himself only and not hamanitf at large. Hod he repelled M&ru'a 
tempting fluggeation to do this, by saying that the time to enter Nirv&na 
wonld not come until he had gained disciples, male and female, and 
jreached his doctrine to all tho world, there would have been no opening 
left for the whole account of the dialogue with Erohnui. 



118 BEQINNmG OF THE TEAOEERS CAREER. 

is only reported that he puts this question to him : '' wherein, 
O Gotama^ consists the nature of the Brahman^ and what are 
the qualities which make a man a Brahman V^ Buddha had^ 
thinking of himself^ spoken in that speech under the tree of 
knowledge of the Brahman^ to whose ardent mind the pro* 
cession of destiny reveals itself : a Brahman now disputes with 
him, the heir of worldly rank, the right to claim the title of 
a Brahman. Buddha tells him : he is a true Brahman who has 
put away all evil from himself, who knows nothing of contempt, 
nothing of impurity, a conqueror of self. 

Human attacks have no power against Buddha: but th& 
raging of the elements is also unable to disturb the abiding 
peaceful repose which is his. Storms arise; for seven 
continuous days rain falls in torrents; cold, tempest, and 
darkness surround him. Mucalinda, the serpent-king, comes 
from his hidden realm, enfolds Buddha's body in a sevenfold 
covering with his serpent coils, and protects him from the 
storm. "And after seven days, when the serpent-king, 
Mucalinda, saw that the sky had become clear and cloudless, 
he loosed his coils from the body of the Exalted, concealed 
his serpent form, assumed the guise of a young man, and 
stepped before the Exalted One, worshipping him with folded 
bands. Seeing this, the Exalted One at this time spoke these 
words : 

* Happy the solitude of the peaceful, who knows and beholds truth ; 
Happy is he who stands firmly unmoYed, who holds himself iujcheck at 

all times. 
Happy he whose every sorrow, whose every wish is at an end. 
The conquest of the stubbornness of the ego-ity is truly the supreme 

happiness.* " 

A genuine Buddhist picture : the deliverer of the world, 
who, amid the raging of tempests, wrapped in a seven-fold 



FIRST HEETma WITH MEN. 



119 



casing by a serpent's body, enjoys the happiness of solitary 
repose. 

Hero follows the first meeting with men who honour him 
as Buddha. Two merchants come passing that way on a 
jonmey : a deity, who had been in eai'thly life related to 
the merchants, announces to them the nearness of Buddliaj 
and prompts them to feed Buddha, The deities, who rule 
over the four quarters of the earth, present to him a bowl 
— for the perfect Buddhas accept no food except in a bowl — 
and he partakes of what the merchants give him, the first 
nourishment which he takes after long fasting, 

"But the merchants, Tapussa and Bballika, when they saw 
that the Exalted One, when his repast was over, had washed 
his bowl and hia hands, bowed their heads to the feet of the 
Exalted One, and spake to the Exalted One, saying : ' we who 
are here, sire, take refuge in the Exalted One and in his 
Doctrine : may the Exalted One accept us aa hia adherents* 
from this day forward throughout oar life, we who have taken 
oar refuge in him.' These were the first persons in the world 
who made their profession of the faith with the two words" — 
namely, the faith in the Buddha and his Doctrine, for as yet, 
the third member of the Buddhist triad, the Order, had not 
come into existence, 

In this overture to the history of Baddha's labours we miss 
one element : a typical adumbration of the most prominent 
task of his life, the preaching of the doctrine of dehverance, 
and of the coming out of persons from among all classes to 
follow him in mendicant attire. Those two merchants take 
refuge in Buddha and the Doctrine, and nevertheless the 
Doctrine has not yet been preached to them. The narrative 



» Tliat i! 



B lay-foUowers, not aa monks. 



120 BEQINNINQ OF THE TEACHSJffB CABEER. 

whioli now follows has to do with the motive, in which all 
this seeming inconsistency finds its explanation. It is one 
thing to have realized for one's self the truth of deliveranoe, 
.and another to proclaim it to the world. Buddha has 
accomplished the first: the resolution to do the second is 
not yet firmly fixed within him: apprehensions and doubt 
remain to be overcome before he adopts this resolve.* 

I shall here let the textf speak for itself. 

''Into the mind of the Exalted One, while he tarried, 
retired in solitude^ came this thought: 'I have penetrated 
this deep truth, which is difficult to perceive, and difficult 
to understand, peace-giving, sublime, which transcends all 
thought, deeply-significant, which only the wise can grasp. 
Man moves in an earthly sphere, in an earthly sphere he has 
his place and finds his enjoyment. For man, who moves in an 
earthly sphere, and has his place and finds his enjoyment in an 
earthly sphere, it will be very difficult to grasp this matter^ 
the law of causality^ the chain of causes and effects : and this 
also will be very difficult for him to grasp, the extinction of 
all conformations^ the withdrawal from all that is earthly^ the 
extinction of desire, the cessation of longing, the end, the 
Xirv&na. Should I now preach the Doctrine and mankind not 
understand me, it would bring me nothing but fatigue, it 
would cause me nothing but trouble ! ' And there passed 
unceasingly through the mind of the Exalted One, this voice, 
which no one had ever before heard. 

* In the language of Bnddliist dogmatic, a Paccekabnddha (a Boddba 
for himself only) is not a Sammasambnddha (uniyersal Buddha and 
a teacher of the world) . For Buddha's appearance as a Sammasambnddha 
a special deliberation was necessary, which the legend giyes in tiie 
narratiye now following. 

t " Maharagga," i, 5, 2, seq. 



4« 



BEB0LVE8 TO PREACH TEE DOCTRINE. 121 

' Wlij reyeal to tHe world what I hare won by a severe straggle P 
The tnith remains hidden from him whom desire and hate absorb. 
It is difficult, mysterious, deep, hidden from the coarse mind; 
He cannot apprehend it, whose mind earthly vocations surround with 
night.' 



^'When the Exalted One thought thus^ his heart was 
inclined to abide in quietude and not to proclaim the Doctrine. 
Then Brahma Sahampati* mth his thotight perceived the 
thought of the Holy One and said thus to himself: 'Truly 
the world is lost, truly the world is undone, if the heart of the 
Perfect One, the holy, highest Buddha, be bent on abiding in 
qnietude and not preaching the Doctrine.' 

'' Then Brahma Sahampati left the heaven of Brahma as 
quickly as a strong man stretches out his bent arm or bends 
his outstretched arm, and he appeared before the Exalted One. 
Then Brahma Sahampati made bare one of his shoulders from 
under his robe,t bowed his right knee to the earth, raised his 
folded hands to the Exalted One, and spake to the Exalted 
One thus : ' May it please, sire, the Exalted One, to preach 
the Doctrine, may it please the Perfect One to preach the 
Doctrine. There are beings, who are pure from the dust of 
the earthly, but if they hear not the preaching of the Doctrine, 
they are lost : they will be believers of the Doctrine.' Thus 
spake Brahma Sahampati; when he had spoken thus, he went 
on to say : — 



' In the land of Magadha there arose before 
A doctrine of impure beings, sinful men. 

* Sahampati is with the Buddhists the standing surname of the 
Supreme Brahma (cf. antea, p. 60) ; the word is not to be explained with 
certainty. 

t A mark of respect. 



122 BEQINKIKG OF THE TEACHER'S CAREER. 

Open thou, O Wise One, the door of eternity. 

Let be heard what thou, O Sinless One, hast discoyered. 

Who stands above high on the mountain's rocky sonimit,. 

His eye looks afar over all people. 

So mount thou also, O Wise One, up where on high 

Far orer the land stand out the battlements of truth. 

And look down. Painless One, on mankind. 

The suffering (creatures), whom birth and old age tortore,. 

£ise, rise, thou valiant hero, rich in victories, 

Gro through the world, sinless preacher of the path, 

£aise thy voice, O sire ; many shall understand thy word.' 



i> 



(Buddha sets the solicitation of Brahma against the donbts? 
and apprehensions^ which made the preaching of the tmth 
appear to him to be a fruitless undertaking. Brahma repeats- 
liis request three times : at last Buddha grants it : ) | 

'' As on a lotus stalk some water-roses^ blue lotus flowers^ 
white lotus flowers^ generated in the water^ growing up in the 
water, rise not out of the water, but bloom in the deep— other 
water roses, blue lotus flowers, white lotus flowers, generated 
in the water, growing up in the water, rise up to the surface of 
the water— and other water roses, blue lotus flowers, white 
lotus flowers, generated in the water, growing up in the water^ 
rise up out of the water and the water damps not their 
blossoms: so likewise, when the Exalted One surreyed the 
universe with the glance of a Buddha, lie saw beings whose 
souls were pure, and whose souls were not pure, from the 
dust of the earthly, with sharp faculties and witb dull faculties,, 
with noble natures and with ^ignoble natures, good hearers 
and wicked hearers, many who lived in fear of the world 
to come and of sin. Wben he saw this, he spake to Brahma 
Sahampati these words :— 

' Let opened be to all the door of eternity ; 
He who hath ears, let him hear the word and believe. 



TEE 8EBM0N AT BENARES. 12^ 

I thought of affliction* for myself, therefore have I, O Brahma, 
Kot yet proclaimed the noble word to the world.' 



€{ 



Then Brahma Sahampati perceived : The Exalted One has 
answered my prayer. He will preach the Doctrine. Then ho 
bowed before the Exalted One, walked round him respectfully 
and vanished.^^ 

Thus has the legend conducted its hero to victory over the 
very last obstacle which stood between him and his calling 
as a deliverer, to victory over all doubt and dismay : the 
resolution to proclaim to the world the knowledge, in which he 
had himself found peace, now stands unshaken. 



The Sermon at Benares. 

Who should be the first to hear the new gospel ? Legend 
makes Buddha think fiirst of all of the two teachers, to whose 
guidance he had first confided himself as a disciple. If he 
were to preach his doctrine to Ihem, they would understand 
him. A deity brings him the intelligence that they are both 
dead. Perhaps they were really so ; in any case the meaning 
of this touch in the legend is clear. No one could have a 
higher claim than those two to be the first hearers of the 
gospel. It would have been ingratitude if Buddha had not 
made them before all others participators of his self-acquired 
treasure. But no one knew anything of his having done so : 
and others were known to be or said to be the first converts* 
These two were therefore represented as being no longer alive 
when Buddha began to preacb his doctrine. 

* FmitlesB toil, if the doctrine found no hearers. 



124 



THE SERMON AT BENARES. 



Could thosej who hod once been Buddha's teacherSj not tnm 
to him as his first diaciplesj yet the quondam partners of liia 
<j[Qest and Etruggle, those five ascetics, conldj who had long 
vied with him in penances, and had forsaken him when they 
saw that he gave up the pursuit of salvation by self-mortifica- 
tion {vide antea, p. 107), They are staying at Benares, and 
our narrative represents Buddha as now wandering thither. 
It is quite possible that tradition here rests on old atA 
tmstworthy memories.* Benares has at all times been 

* It ia a tia,tural supposition that Euddha directed his first ministn' 
tion to hia quondam associates and admirers, in whom he could hsfc 
most surely to find willing hearers. Criticism Has no means of detenniniDg 
absolutely, whether we are here to find in tlie internal probabihtiH of 
the cose, a mark of genuineness, or of fictjon. But, in mj opinion, it ii 
a priori probable that the recollection, of where and to whom Budifii's 
first discourse, or at any rate his first successful discourse, was deUrere^. 
had not been lost. That some preceding uusuccessfnl attempts on Buddhi'» 
part to gain adherents, have been passed over in. silence by tradition.^ 
quite possible; but Mons. L. Fecr's attempts ("Etudes Bouddhiqno.'' 
i, p. 1-37) to point out traces of such events in the tradition, »miii 
to me unsuccessful ; the nature of these traditions does not admit of 
calculating fcom Buddha's proceedings any such pragmatic consecntn* ' 
order of things, as this scholar has sought to make out therefrom, sot- I 
without some violence towards the tradition in many plaecs. If ** 
follow the victorious march of Buddha, as we find it described in tin I 
■" Mahiivagga," i, 1.34, on the map, there is not much to be said agaiMt tlir i 
itjnerarium : this to-and-fro movement is quite in accordance with &t i 
customs of these pious wanderers. ^Yhen wo call to mind the shuplj i 
defined analogy, which the imagination of the Buddhists traces between ttr 
victorious career o£ their master and the victorious progress of a worlJ' I 
subduing king, wo can scarcely avoid opining that the former, if pw* 
invention had here had full swing, would have been congtruri'*- 
BJjcording to the standing geographical scheme of the latter (oirf(t"Li!il^j 
Vistara," p. 16, seq.). Tho direct contradiction in which the nairaB**' 
«f the "Mahiivagga" finds itself tJi this scheme, demonatratea easentil^' 
that it contains authentic matter. 



THE SERMON AT BENARES. 



125 



regarded by the Buddhists as the town in which the gospel 
of deliverance was first heard and believed. 

We reserve for a later passage the attempt to give a 
connected description of the manner in which Buddha preacHed 
his doctrine, what chorda ho was wont to strike in his hearers. 
In this phice we merely give the old narrative. It shows us ita 
hero now, at the beginning of his career, already wholly the 
same as it makes him appear to be throughout hia long life. 
The monks, to whom we owe these notices, could not depict 
internal becomingj nor conld thoy invent internal becoming, 
for they did not know what internal becoming is j and, even 
liad they known it, how could they admit internal becoming in 
the case of the Perfect One, who had discovered for himself 
the path from the world of sorrowful becoming into the world 
of happy being ? 

Tlie history of the first discourse of Buddha at Benarea runs, 
in the solemn circumstantial narrative style which is peculiar 
to the sacred writings of the Buddhists, thus : * 

"And the Exalted One, wandering from place to place, 
came to Benares, to the deer-park Isipatana, where the five 
aficetics dwelt. Then the five ascetics saw the Exatted One 
Approaching from a distance : when they saw him, they said 
to one another: 'Friends, yonder cornea tho ascetic Gotama, 
who lives in self-indulgence, who has given up hia quest, and 
returned to self-indulgence. We shall show him no respect, 
not rise up before him, not take his alms-bowl and his cloak 
from him : bnt we shall give him a seat, and he can sit down, 
if he likes.' 

But the nearer and nearer the Exalted One came to the 
five ascetics, tho less could the five ascetics abide by their 

■ " MBhAvagea." i. 6-10, eeq. 



126 THE SERMON AT BENARES. 

resolution : they went np to the Exalted One : one took from 
the Exalted One his aJms-bowl and cloak : another brought him 
a seaty a third gave him water to wash his feet and a footstool 
The Exalted One sat down on the seat which was set for him: 
when he had sat down^ the Exalted One washed his feet. 

''Now they addressed the Exalted One by his name and 
called him 'Friend/ When they addressed him thuSj the 
Exalted One said to the five ascetics: 'Ye monks^ address 
not the Perfect One* by his name and call him not " Friend." 
The Perfect One^ monks^ is the holy^ supreme Buddha. 
Open ye your ears^ monks; the deliverance firom death is 
found : I teach you^ I preach the Law. If ye walk according 
to my teachings ye shall be partakers in a short time of that 
for which noble youths leave their homes and go into home- 
lessness^ the highest end of religious effort : ye shall even in 
this present life apprehend the truth itself and see face to 
face/ 

" When he spake thus^ the five ascetics said to the Exalted 
One : ' If thou hast not been able^ friend Grotama^ by that 
course, by those mortifications of the body, to attain super- 
human perfection, the full supremacy of the knowledge and 
contemplation of sacred things, how wilt thou now, when 
thou livest in self-indulgence, when thou hast given np thy 
efibrt, and returned to self-indulgence, attain superhuman 
perfection, the full supremacy of the knowledge and con- 
templation of sacred things V 

" When they said this, the Exalted One spake to the five 
ascetics : ' monks, the Perfect One liveth not in self- 

* The word, which we translate " the Perfect One " (Tath&gata) is 
that which, most probably, Baddha was wont to use, when he was 
^speaking of himself. 



TEE SERilOS AT BENARES. 127 

Edigence : he has not given up his effort and returned to 
ilf-mdnlgeace. The Perfect One, O monks, is the holy, 
npreme Baddha. Open je your ears, ye monks ; the 

liverancQ from death is found : I teach you, I preach the 

iw. If ye walk according to my teaching, ye shall be 
partakers ih a short time of that for which noble youths 
eave their homes and go into homelessness, the highest end 
f religious effort : ye shall even in the present life apprehend 
he truth itself and see face to face/ " 

(They repeat the same dialogue a second and a third 
ime.) 

"When they said this, the Exalted One spake to the five 
scetics : ' Tell me, ye monks, have I ever before addressed 
■on in these terms T' 

" ' Sire, thou has not.' 

" ' The Perfect One, monks, is the holy, highest Buddha. 
[)pen ye your ears, ye monks, the deliverance from death is 
band,' etc. 

"Then the five ascetics hearkened ooce more to the Exalted 
Dne. They opened their ears and directed their thoughts to 
knowledge. 

" Then the Exalted One spake to the five ascetics, saying : 
' There are two extremes, monks, from which he who leads 
1 religious life moat abstain. What are those two extremes ? 
One is a life of pleasure, devoted to desire and enjoyment : 
"that is base, ignoble, unspiritual, unworthy, unreal. The 
other is a life of mortification : it ia gloomy, unworthy, unreal. 
The Perfect One, monks, is removed from both these 
extremes and has discovered the way which lies between 
them, the middle way which enlightens the eyes, enlightens 
ihe mind, which leads to rest, to knowledge, to enlightenment, 
^ Nirvfina. And what, monks, ia this middle way, which. 



128 



THE SERilON AT BSSARE3. 



the Perfect One has discovered, -whioli enligtteiia the eye and 
enlightens the spirit, ivhich leads to rest, to knowledge, to 
enlightenment, to Nirvana ? It is this sacredj eight-fold path, 
aa it is called : Right Faith, Eight Besolve, Bight Speeci, 
Right Action, Eight Living, Right E£Eort, Eight Thonght, 
Right Self-concentration, This, monks, is the middle way, 
which the Perfect One has discovered, which enlightens tliB 
eye and enlightens the spirit, which leads to rest, to know- 
ledge, to enlightenment, to NirvS,na. 

"'Thia, monks, is the sacred troth of suffering: Birth* 
is suffering, old age is suffering, sickness is suffering, death 
is suffering, to be united with the imlovod is suffering, to be 
separated from the loved is suffering, not to obtain what one 
desires is suffering, iu short the five-fold clinging (to ths 
earthly*) is suffering, 

" ' This, monks, is the sacred truth of the origin of snfEerin^: 
it is the thirst (for being), which leads from birth to birti, 
together with last and desire, which finds gratification hew 
and there : the thirst for pleasures, the thirst for being, to 
thirst for pow'er. 

"'This, monks, is the sacred truth of the extinction of 
suffering : the extinction of this thirst by complete ai 
of desire, letting it go, expelling it, separating oneself 
giving it no room, 

" ' This, monks, is tho sacrod truth of tho path which 
to the extinction of suETering : it is this sacred, eight-fold patt»^ 
to wit : Eight Faith, Eight Resolve, Right Speech, 
Action, Right Living, Right Effort, Eight Thougbt, 
Self- concentration, 

• The clinging to the five elements, oE which man's bcklj-oiua- 
atato of beinB consists : corporeal form, Bensations, pereeptioni, 
formationa (or aspirations), and 




-B^^^ 



TEE SERMON AT BENARES. 12:> 

*^^'This is the sacred truth of suflfering; thus my eye, 
monks, was opened to these conceptions, which no one had 
comprehended before, and my judgment, cognition, intuition, 
and vision were opened. '^ It is necessary to understand 
this sacred truth of suffering/' — '^ I have comprehended this 
sacred truth of suffering/' Thus, monks, my eye was opened to 
these conceptions) which no one had comprehended before, and 
my judgment, cognition, intuition, and vision were opened/'^ 

(Then follow similar passages regarding the other three 
truths.) 

^'^And as long, monks, as I did not possess in perfect 
clearness this triple, twelve-part,* trustworthy knowledge and 
understanding of these four sacred truths, so long, monks, 
I knew that I had not yet attained the supreme Buddhahood 
in this world, and the worlds of gods, of M&ra and of Brahma, 
among all beings, ascetics and Brahmans, gods and men. 
But since, monks, I have come to possess in perfect clearness 
this triple, twelve-part, trustworthy knowledge and under- 
standing of these four sacred truths, since then I know, 

monks, that I have attained the supreme Buddhahood in this 
world, and in the worlds of gods, of Mfira and of Brahma ; 
among all beings, ascetics and Brahmans, gods and men. And 

1 have seen and know this : the deliverance of my soul is 
secured : this is my last birth : henceforth there is for me no 

' new birth.' 

^^Thus spake the Exalted One: the five ascetics joyfully 
received the words of the Exalted One." 

This is the sermon at Benares, which tradition gives as the 

• Of each of the four truths Buddha possesses a tri-partite knowledge, 
e.ff. of the first : ** this is the sacred truth of suffering ; " " one must 
understand this sacred truth of suffering;" ''I have understood this 
sacred truth of suffering." 

9 



130 TEE SERMON AT BENARES. 

opening of the ministry of Buddhaj by whicli he, as his 
disciples expressed themselves^ '' has set in motion the wheel 
of the law/' One may entertain whatever opinion he pleases 
regarding the historical trath with which this sermon is 
reported — I am inclined^ for my part, to entertain no very high 
opinion of it — but even the more freely concocted one may 
take this discourse to be, only the more highly must he rate its 
fundamental importance, for he is so much the more certain 
here to find, if not the words actually spoken on the occasion 
of a definite occurrence, at any rate the ideas which the ancient 
Church regarded, and certainly not improperly regarded, as 
the real lever in the preaching of their master. Clearly and 
sharply defined are the leading thoughts, which stand in the 
middle of the contracted solemn thought- world, in which the 
Buddhist Church lived : in the centre of all one sole idea, the 
idea of deliverance. Of deliverance, of that from which we are 
to be delivered, of the way in which we shall be delivered, of 
this and of nothing else does this sermon of Buddha's, and, we 
may add, do the sermons of Buddha as a rule, treat. Grod and 
the universe trouble not the Buddhist : he knows only one 
question : how shall I in this world of suffering be delivered 
from suffering? We shall have to return to the answer which 
the sermon at Benares gives to this question. 

When Buddha finishes his discourse, there rises from earth 
through all the worlds of gods the cry, that at Benares the 
Holy One has set in motion the wheel of the law. The five 
ascetics, headed by Kondanna, who has hence obtained the 
name of Kondanna, the Kjiower, beg Buddha to initiate them 
as students of his doctrine, and he does so in these words: 
'^ Come near, monks ; well preached is the doctrine : walk in 
purity to make an end of all suffering.'' Thus is founded the 
Church of Buddha's followers : the five are its firsts as yet 



SENDINa OUT FIRST DISCIPLES. 



131 



its only, members, A fresh discourse of Buddha's, on the 
instability and impermanenco of everything earthlyj causes the 
souls of the five disciples to obtain the condition of sinless 
purity. " At this time," thus ends this narrative, " there were 
sis holy persons in the world " — Buddha himself and these five 
^ciples. 



FoETHEK Conversions. 

The number of believers soon incraasea. The next convert 
is Tasa, a scion of a wealthy house at Benares : his parents 
and his wife likewise hear Buddha's discourses and become 
adherents of the faith as a lay-brother and lay-sister. Nume- 
rona friends of Yasa, youths of the moat prominent houses in 
Senarea and the country roundabout, adopt the monastic life. 
The company of the faithful soon reaches sixty members. 
Boddha sends them forth to preach the law throughout the 
country. In nothing did the secret of the great power of 
rapid increase, which existed in the young Church, so much 
lie as in its itinerancy : here anon, there anon, appearing, 
■ishing, simultaneously at a thousand places. "O dis- 
ciples," thus in our authorities run the words with which 
Buddha sends out his followers, " I am loosed from all bands, 
divine and human. Ye also, disciples, are loosed from all 
bands, divine and human. Go ye out, disciples, and travel 
from place to place for the welfare of many people, for the 
joy of many people, in pity for the world, for the blessing, 
welfare, and joy of gods and men. Go not in twos to one 
place. Preach, disciples, the law, the beginning of which is 
noble, the middle of which is noble, and the end of which is 
noble, in spirit and in letter : preach the whole and full, pure 



132 FURTHER COyVERBIOSS, 

path of holiness. There are beings^ who are pore from the 
dost of the earthly^ but if they hear not the gospel of the 
law^ they perish: they shall understand the law. Bat I, 
O disciples^ go to Uruvela^ to the village of the general^ to 
preach the law/' 

At nrayeUL there reside Brahman hermits^ a thousand in 
number^ who keep alight the sacred fire of sacrifice according 
the rites of the Yedas^ and perform their ablutions in the 
river Neranjar^. Three brothers^ Brahmans, of the Eiissapa 
family^ are the leaders of these ascetics. Buddha conies to 
one of them and overcomes with miraculous power the terrible 
serpent-kingy who dwelt in £[assapa's sacrificial chamber. 
The Brahmans wonder-struck persuade him to spend the 
winter with them. He stops there^ dwelling in the forest near 
Kassapa's hermitage^ in which he takes his food every day. 
Miracle after miracle convinces the Brahmans of his greatness : 
gods come to listen to his discourses; they shine like flaming 
fire all night long. Kassapa^ overcome with wonder^ admits the 
superhuman greatness of his guest^ but he cannot bring TiJTngAlf 
to submit to him. '^Thus the Exalted One/' as onr oU 
narrative states in this connection^ '^thought within himself: 
^ this simpleton will long continue thinking : ^' the great 
Sumana is very powerful and mighty^ but he is not holy as I 
am.'' So then, I shall work on this hermif s heart.' There- 
fore the Exalted One spake to the hermit Kassapa of TJrayeli: 
' Thou art not holy, Kassapa, nor hast thou found the path of 
holiness : and thou knowest nothing of the way by which thou 
canst be holy and mayest reach the path of holiness.' Then 
the hermit Eiissapa, of Uruvela, bowed his head to the feet of 
the Exalted One, and said to the Exalted One : ' Grrant me, 
sire, to receive the degrees of initiation, the lower and the 
higher.' " 



FR0CBED3 TO KAJAGAEA. 



133 

All naiTatives o£ conversions in the Buddhiat scriptures 
resemble this narrative more or leas. Where any attempt at 
individoality is raadOj it tarns out clumsy and 'poor. That 
earnest, deep feeliugj and the impnlae of stroifg emotion was 
not denied to these minds, ia amply proved by the poetry of 
the Buddhists. But describe they could Lot, and what they 
TTere least capable of understanding was individual life. 

Kassapa's two brothera and all the bands of hermits round 
them tnm to Buddha and adopt monastic garb. Thus the 
nomber of believers is at one stroke raised to a thousand. 

They now wander from Uruvelfl. to RSjagaha, the near-Iyiug 
capital of the Magadha kingdom. The halting-place is in a 
bambn-thicket outside the town. The young king BimbiaSra 
hears of Buddha's arrival, and goes out with a vast following* 
of citizens and Brahmans to make the acquaiutanco of the 
teacher who had acquired sudden fame. When the people saw 
Buddha and Kassapa together, doubts arose as to which of the 
two is master and which is the disciple. Kassapa rises from 
his seat, hows his head to Buddha's feet and says : " Sire, my 
master is the Exalted One : I am hia pupil. Sire, my master is 
the Exalted One : I am his pupil." Buddha preaches heforo 
the king and his retinue : Bimbisara, with a great number of 
his people, declares himself a lay convert of Buddha's Church. 
Thenceforth throughout his long life he became one of the 
truest friends and patrons of Buddha and hia doctrine. 

Tradition informs us that on that occasion at Biljagaha 

•The text says that "tirclTe mjtiada of Brahmans and cittzena of 
Magftdha" surrounded the king. These eitravBgantlj liigU figures 
differ far too widely from the statements regarding the number of 
d'lHoiplcs accompanying Buddha (a few Imndreds, at most thouBanda), for 
us to be in a position to draw conclusions from them with anj certainty 
whatever as to the eiccssiye character oftho latter, in tliemselTeB very 
credible, numbers. 



134 FURTHER CONVERSIONS. 

Buddha also gained as disciples those two men^ S&ripatta and 
MoggaWkna, who came later on to be honoured as the first in 
rank after their master in the circles of the Chnrch. These 
two young men, bound to each other by close ties of friend- 
ship, sons of a Brahman family, were at that time residing at 
Bdjagaha as pupils of Sanjaya, one of the itinerant medicants 
and teachers so numerous in' that age. In their common 
pursuit of spiritual possessions, they had, as is related^ given 
each other this promise, that he who would first obtain the 
deliverance from death, should tell the other. One day 
S&riputta saw one of Buddha's disciples, Assaji, walking the 
streets of B&jagaha to collect alms, peaceful and dignified, with 
downcast look. ''When he saw him,'' our narrative* here 
informs us, '' he thought : ' truly this is one of those monks who 
are already sanctified in this world, or have attained the path 
of purity. I shall go up to this monk and I shall ask him : 
'* Friend, in whose name hast thou renounced the world ? and 
who is thy master ? and whose doctrine dost thou recognize ?" ' 
But then S&riputta, the mendicant, reflected : ' Now is not the 
time to ask this monk. He is going from house to bouse and 
is collecting alms. I shall approach this monk, as one 
approaches a person from whom he desires something.' But 
when the venerable Assaji had collected alms at] B&jagaha, he 
took the contributions he had received and turned back. 
Thereupon the mendicant, S&riputta, approached the venerable 
Assaji : arrived near him, he saluted the venerable Assaji. 
After he had exchanged words of friendly salutation with him, 

* The passage which I here translate is one of those which king 
Asoka, in the Bairat inscription (circ. 260 B.c.)j commanded the monks 
and nuns, the lay-brothers and lay-sisters, intently to hear and learn. 
The text is there described as ** the question of Upatissa," but TJpatissa 
is a name of SHriputta. 



SAEIPUTTA ASD ilOGQALLANA. 



135 



Le placed himself near him. Standing near him, the mendi- 
cant, S&riputta, addresaed the venerable Assaji, saying : ' Thy 
visage, friend, is luminous, thy colour is pure and clear. In 
whose name, friend, hast thou renounced the world ? and who 
is thy master ? and whose doctrine] dost thou recognize ?' ' It 
is the great Samana, my friend, the Sakya's son, who comes 
from the Sakya's house and has renounced the world. In his 
name, the Exalted One's, I have renounced the world, and he, 
the Exalted One, is my master, and his law, the Exalted One's, 
I recognize.' ' And what, friend, does thy master say, and 
what does he teach ?' ' Frieiid, I am but a novice ; it is not 
long since I left the world ; I have only recently conformed to 
this doctrine and this order. I cannot expound the doctriae 
to thee in its fulness, but I can tell thee its spirit briefly.' 
Then tho mendicant, SAriputta, said to the venerable Assaji : 
' Be it 80, friend. Tell me little or much, but tell me its spirit : 
I have a longing to know the spirit only : what great care 
■canst thoa have for the letter ?' Then the venerable Assaji 
addressed to the mendicant, S&riputta, this statement of tho 
■doctrine : 

"'Existences which flow from a cause, their cause the Perfect 
One teaches, and how they end : this is the doctrine of tho 
great Samana.' "* 

• TMa gcntencc has become in later ages the briefly-expressed eon- 
feBsion of faith of Buddhism ; it ia to he met inscribed on iiumeroos 
monnments, Undouhtedlj it refers to tho doctrine of the coneatenntion 
■of CBQaes and cfibcts, on which doctrine tradition, as we hare seen 
(p. 114} represents Buddha's thoughts as being tixcd, when he sits under 
ihe sacred tree of the Buddhahood. The painful destinj of the world 
works itself out in the chain of operations, which flow from ignoranoe ; 
the doctrine of Buddha tells us what these existences are, dependent one 
on another, springing from igaorancc, and how thej come to an end, i.e., 
bow tJie suffering of the world is removed. 



136 FURTHER COI^^ERSIONS. 

And when the mendicant S^putta heard this statement of 
the doctrine^ he obtained the clear^ xmdimmed vision of the 
truth, and he perceived: '^ Whatever is subject to the law of 
beginning, all that is also subject to the law of decay/' (And 
he said to Assaji :) " If the doctrine be nothing else bat this, 
thou hast at any rate attained the condition in which there is 
no suffering. That which hath not been seen by many myriads 
of bygone ages, hath in these days come near unto us" 

SSriputta now goes to his friend, Moggall&na. " Thy visage,, 
friend,'' says Moggallftna, ^' is luminous, thy colour is pure and 
clear. Hast thou found the deliverance from death ?" ''Yes, 
friend, I have found the deliverance from death ! *' And he 
tells him of his meeting with Assaji, and on Moggallana also 
'' the clear, undimmed light of truth " dawns. Sanjaya, their 
instructor, in vain begs them to remain with him. They go 
with great crowds of ascetics into the wood where Buddha is 
resting : but a hot stream of blood bursts from Sanjaya's 
mouth. Buddha sees the two coming : he announces to those 
nround him that those are now approaching who should be the 
foremost and noblest among his disciples. And the two of 
them receive the initiation from Buddha himself. 

*'At this time," continues our narrative, ''many distin- 
guished and noble youths of the Magadha territory joined 
themselves to Buddha, to lead a pure life. On this the 
populace became displeased, murmured, and were angry, 
saying: 'The ascetic Gotama is come to bring childlessness: 
the ascetic Gotama is come to bring widowhood : the ascetic 
Gotama is come to bring subversion of families. Already hath, 
he turned the thousand hermits into his disciples, and he hath 
made the two hundred and fifty mendicant followers of Sanjaya 
his disciples, and now these many distinguished and 'noble 
youths of the Magadha kingdom are betaking themselves 



POPULAR FEELING. 137 

to the ascetic Gotama to lead a religious life/ And whenever 
the people saw any of the disciples they taunted them with 
these words.: 

' The great monk came in his travels to the capital of Magadha, seated 

on ahilL 
He has converted all Sanjaya's followers, whom will he draw after 
him to-day P ' 

''The disciples then learned how the populace was displeased, 
mnrmnred, and was angry : and the disciples^ told the Exalted 
One. 'This excitement, O disciples/ said the Exalted One, 
' will not last long. Seven days will it last : after seven days 
will it vanish. But ye, my disciples, if they taunt you with 
the saying : 

* The great monk came in his travels to the. capital of Magadha, seated 

on ahilL 
He has converted all Sanjaya's followers, whom will he draw after 
him to-day P ' 

answer them with these words : 

* The heroes, the perfect ones, convert hy their true discourse ; 
Who will reproach the Enlightened One who converts hy the power 

of truthP'" 

Have we really here a pair of those rhymes before us, such 
as they were probably bandied at that time between the 
friends and foes of the young teacher among the gossiping 
populace of the streets of the capital ? 



CHAPTER IV. 



Buddha's Woek. 

With the history of the conversion of those two most 
prominent of his disciples^ and the account of the soon-allayed 
discontent of the people at Bajagaha^ the connected narrative 
of Buddha's career breaks off, again to unite but once more, 
where the memory had to be fastened on the last wanderings 
of the aged teacher, on his parting utterances and his death. 
For the long period which lies between that beginning and the 
end, a period, as we are told, of more than four decades, there 
is in our tradition, at least in that which deserves this name, 
nothing in the way of a continuous description, but merely 
collections of countless real or feigned addresses, dialogues, 
and sayings of Buddha, to which is annexed a short note 
regarding the external circumstances of place and company, 
which led to these utterances. 

To outward view it is a uniform life which lies before us in 
this uni-coloured tradition, and that wherein alone the true 
history of this life lay, the inner current of being with its ebb 
and flow, its coming and its going, is hidden from us. When 
and how the picture of the world and life comes to assume in 
Buddha's mind the form in which it presented itself to his 
followers, in what order above all his convictions regarding 



UNlFOEillTT OF LATER LIFE. 



himself and his mission developed tliemselves within liim, how 
far the prejudices of the Indian people and the criticism of the 
Indian schools eventually reacted on Buddha's thought and 
inclination, — even to ask these questions nobody who looks to 
oar authorities will be bold enough. Of this we shall never 
learn anything : we cannot. 

What we can do is, without attempting to draw any distinc- 
tion of early and later periods, merely to unite the different 
features which tradition places at our disposal, so as to form 
a connected picture, a picture of Bnddfaa'a teaching and life, 
of his intercourse with high and low, of the circle of disciples 
gathered round him, and of the wider circles of partizans and 
antagonists. 

Can we hope to attain historical truth in such a picture ? 

Yes and no. 

No : for this picture shows ua only the type of ancient 
Buddhist life, but not the individual characteristics which 
belonged to Buddha and him only, as peculiarly his own, in 
the sense that we have, a picture of Socrates which truly 
resembles Socrates only and no one else, even no Socvatic. 

Still this, which on the one hand indicates a want in our 
knowledge, gives us on the other hand, however, a gi-ound for 
trusting it. 

India is altogether a laud of types, not of individualities 
stamped with their own dies. Life begins and passes away 
there, as the plant blooms and withers, subject to the dull 
Tule of the laws of Nature; and the laws of Nature can 
produce nothing but typical forms. Only where the breath of 
freedom floats are those proud forces of manhood unfettered, 
which enable man to become, and dare to become, something 
individual, like himself alone. Thus on all pictures in the 
Indian epics, despite their splendid colouring, there lies that 



140 BUDDEA'S WORK, 

strange torpor which makes men look like spectres, to which 
the dranght of vivifying blood had been denied: and this 
effect is owing to this cause above all others, that the domain 
of this poetry does not extend to the point where the par- 
ticularly characteristic life of the individual begins. This 
range was closed to Indian poetry because the Indian peoples 
'themselves were denied the power to develope individualties. 
And in the same way in the history of Indian thought, there 
also the power at work is not the individual mind, but always 
merely the great Indian folk-mind, that which the Indians, 
if questioned regarding the origin of their sacred writings, 
denominate the sacred Vedic spirit. Through all there operates 
an unindividual universal, and the individual bears only those 
marks with which the universal mind has endowed him. 

Are we not to believe that this same law has also governed 
the beginnings of Buddhist life ? The great disciples, who 
clustered round the Master, Sftriputta and MoggaMna, Up&li, 
and Ananda, completely resemble each other in the old 
narratives, and their picture is nothing else but the invariably 
uniform copy of Buddha himself, only on a reduced scale. The 
reality was hardly much otherwise: the individual was little 
more than a specimen, which the general spirit disclosed to 
^dew, and this general spirit again was, with reference to the 
forms in which it outwardly displayed itself, scarcely intrinsically 
different from the spirit of Buddha himself and the forms 
among which Buddha's life was passed. 

Furthermore, the period between Buddha and the fixing 
of our traditions regarding him was in nothing so deficient 
as in minds capable of giving a new direction to the great 
movement, or of stamping it with the impress of their own 
life : the ancient Buddhist Church had not a Paul. But in 
this we have a guarantee that this movement, as it is sketched 



BVDOBA'S PERSON AND TBE BUDDHISTIC TYPE. lil 

for US, is ia its essence the same as Buddha and Ms first 
disciples made it. True, Buddha may have had many a noble 
mark of intellect and of creative power, which the puny 
natures, by which his picture has been preserved to us, have 
reduced to their own lower level, but a form like his can 
certainly not be fundamentally misconceived. 

Thus, though only a few touches of the picture presented 
to us by tradition can be said to be absolutely reliable, in the 
sense of historically exact, still we shall have a right to look 
upon this picture itself in its entirety as reliable in a higher 
sense. 



BuDDHA^s Daily Lipb. 

From year to year the change from a period of wandering 
to a period of rest and retirement repeated itself for Buddha 
and his disciples. In the month of June when, after the dry 
scorching heat of the Indian summer, clouds come up in 
towering masses, and the rolling thunders herald the approach 
of the rain-bearing monsoon, the Indian to-day, as in ages past, 
prepares himself and his house for the time during which 
all usual operations are interrupted by the rain : for whole 
weeks long in many places the pouring torrents confine the 
inhabitants to their huts, or at any rate to their villages, while 
communication with neighbours is cut off by rapid, swollen 
streams, and by inundations. ^^The birds,'' says an ancient 
Buddhist work, " build their nests on the tops of trees : and 
there they nestle and hide during the damp season.'' And 
thus also it was in those days an established practice with the 
members of monastic orders, undoubtedly not first in Buddha's 
time, but since ever there was a system of religious itinerancy 



142 BUDDHA'S DAILY UFE. 

in India^ to suspend itinerant operations daring the three rainy 
months and to spend this time in quiet retirement in the 
neighbourhood of towns and villages, where sure support was 
to be found through the charity of believers. To this custom 
they adhered all the more strongly because they could not, 
during the rainy season, which, after the scorching heat of 
summer, calls everywhere into being an infinite variety of 
vegetable and animal life, travel about, without infringing 
at every step the commandment which forbids the destruction 
of even the lowest form of life. 

Buddha also every year for three months ^^kept vassa 
(rainy reason),^^ surrounded by groups of his disciples, who 
flocked together to pass the rainy reason near their teacher. 
Kings and wealthy men contended for the honour of enter- 
taining him and his disciples, who were with him, as guests 
during this season in the hospices and gardens which they 
had provided for the community. 

The rains being over, the itinerating began : Buddha went 
from town to town and village to village, always attended by a 
great concourse of disciples : the texts are wont to speak in 
one place of three hundred, and in another of five hundred, who 
followed their master.* In the main streets, through which 
the religious pilgrims like travelling merchants used to pass, 
the believers who dwelt near had taken ample care to provide 
shelter, to which Buddha and his disciples, might resort : or, 
where monks who professed the doctrine dwelt, there was sure 
to be found lodging for the night in their abodes, and even if 

* On the occasion of a prophecy of Buddha's regarding Metteyya, the 
next Buddha, who will in the far fntnre appear upon the earth, it is said : 
" He will be the leader of a band of disciples, numbering hundreds of 
thousands, as I am now the leader of bands of disciples, numbering 
hundreds." — Cahkavattisuttanta. 



JOINT SEASON AND SEASON OF ITINERANCT. 143 

DO other cover was to be had, there was no want of mango or 
banyan trees, at the feet of which the "band might halt for the 
alight. 

The territory through which these wandering excursions 
generally extended was the circuit of the " Eastern Land," 
i.e., chiefly the old kingdoms of Kusi-Kosala and Magadha, 
■with the neighbouring free states, the territories known to-day 

Oudh and Bihar. Contrasted with this were the kingdoms 
of " Western Hindostan," the ancient seat of Vedic culture 
vaA of the exclusive power of a Brahman order strongly 
opposed to the religious influences of the East, affected, it is 
true, if tradition rightly inform us, by the itinerant ministra- 
■tions of Boddha, but still only seldom and superficially. The 
most important headquarters daring these wanderings, at the 
same time the approximately extreme points, to the north- 
west and south-east, of the area, in which Buddha's pilgrim-life 
was passed, are the capital cities of the kings of Kosala and 
and Magadha, Stivatthi (now Sahet Mahet on the Eapti) and 
!B<ijagBha (now Rajgir, south of Bihar),* In the immediate 
neighbourhood of these towns the community possessed 
numerous pleasant gardens, in which structures of various 
lands were erected for the requirements of the members. 

Not too far from, nor yet too near the town," thus runs 
the standard description of such a park given ia the sacred 
texts, "well provided with entrances and exits, easily accessible 
to all people who inquire after it, with not too much of the 
lostle of life by day, quiet by night, far from commotion and 
the crowds of men, a place of retirement, a good spot for 
aolitary meditation." Such a garden was the Veltivana 
("Bamba-grove"), once a pleasure ground of king Eimbisfira 

The distance betweea these two capitals ie about the eame as between 
Xondon and Edmbargh. 



144 BVDDHAS DAILY LIFE. 

and presented by him to Buddha and the Church : another 
waa the still more renowned Jetavana (at S&vatthi), a gift 
made by Buddha's moat liberal admirer, the great merchant 
An4thapindika, Not alouo the aacred texts, but equally also 
the monumental records, the reliefs of the great Stnpa of 
Bharhut, recently explored, show how highly celebrated tim 
gift of An&thapindika's was from the earliest days in the 
Buddhist Church. It is narrated how Anfithapindika was 
in search of a spot which should be worthy to serve as a place 
of aojourn for Buddha and his disciples ; the garden of the 
priuce Jeta alone appeared to him to unite in itself all reqoitft- 
ments, but the prince declined to sell it to him. After 
protracted negotiations Anathapindika obtained the garden 
for as much gold as sufficed to cover the surface of the groanil 
of the whole Jetavana. He gave it to Buddha, whose favourite 
place of sojourn it thenceforward was. Numberless passages 
of the sacred texts, in which the subject-matter consists 
of addresses and sayings of Buddha, begin : " At this time tie 
holy Buddha was sojourning at Sfivatthi, in the Jetavana, the 
garden of AnSthapindika." 

If it is possible to speak of a home in the homeless, 
wandering life of Bnddha and his disciples, places like tlie 
Veluvana and Jetavana may of all others be so called, near the 
great centres of Indian life and yet untouched by the turcooil 
of the capitals, once the quiet resting places of rulers snJ 
nobles, before the yellow-robed mendicants appeared on ti* 
scene, and "the Church in the four quarters, present and 
absent," succeeded to the possession of the kiugly inheritance— 
In these gardens were the residences of the brethren, honsiS.^ 
halls, cloisters, storerooms, surrounded by lotus-pools, fn^iw^'* 
mango trees, and slender fan-palms that lift their foliage hi^ "% 
over all else, and by the deep green foliage of the Nyi 



SOJOURN IN GARDENS NEAR CHIEF TOWNS. 145 

tree, whose roots dropping from the air to earth become new 
stems, and with their cool shady arcades and leafy walks seem 
to invite to peaceful meditation.* 

These were the surroundings in which Buddha passed a 
great part of his life, probably the portions of it richest in 
eflfective work. Here masses of the population, lay as well as 
monastic, flocked together to see him and to hear him preach. 
Hither came pilgrim monks from far countries, who have 
heard the &.me of Baddha^s teaching and, when the rainy 
season is past, undertake a pilgrimage to see the master face 
to fiice. ^^ It is customary,^' runs an oft-recurring passage in 
our texts, ^^for monks, when they have passed the rainy 
season, to set out to see the Exalted One. It is the custom of 
the exalted Buddha to welcome monks who come from afar.^' 
*' Is it well with you, monks ? '' Buddha is accustomed to ask 
the arrivals. '^Are you able to live? Have you passed the 
rains in peace and unity, and without discord, and have you 
experienced any want of support ? ^' 

We hear, for instance, of one of the faithful named Sona, 
in the land of Avanti (Malwa), far from the country in which 
Buddha lived, whom the fame of the new doctrine had reached, 
and there arose in him the desire to be received among its 
professors. Three long years he had to wait until he 
succeeded in bringing together in this distant land the ten 
monks, whose presence was indispensable to conferring the 
orders on a new member. Once, when he was in solitude,. 
there occurred to him the thought : ^' I have, it is true, 

* The Chinese pilgrim Fa Hian (in the beginning of the fifth century 
after Christ) writes regarding the Jetavana (according to BeaFs trans- 
lation, p. 75) : " The clear water of the tanks, the luxuriant groves, and 
numberless flowers of variegated hues, combine to produce the picture of 
wliat is called the Vihara of Chi-un (Jeta).'* 

10 



Ii6 BUDDEA'8 DAILY LIFE. 

heard of the Exalted One^ he is so and so, bnt I have not seen 
him face to face. I will go to behold him, the exalted, holy, 
highest Baddha, if my teacher allows me to go/' And his 
teacher, to whom he expressed his wish, answered him: 
*^ Grood, Sona, good : go, Sona, to behold him, the exalted, 
holy, supreme Buddha. Thou shalt see him, Sona, the Exalted 
One, the bringer of joy, the dispenser of joy, whose organs of 
life are placid, whose spirit is at rest, the supreme self-subduer 
and peace-possessor, the hero who had conquered self and 
watches himself, who holds his desires in check/' And Sona 
prepares for the journey to StLvatthi, where Buddha 'is 
tarrying in the Jetavana, the garden of An&thapindika. 

Pagrims of this class come together where Buddha is 
sojourning, and the meetings and greetings of the arriving 
groups with the clerical brothers who live on the spot, the 
interchange of news, the arraogement of lodging-places for 
the itinerant monks, then not unfrequently caused those 
noisy clamours so strange to western ears, which seem to be 
inseparable from such occasions in the East, and which are 
most earnestly deprecated more than once in the sacred texts. 

The fame of Buddha's person also drew together from far 
and near crowds of such as stood without the narrower circles 
of the community. " To the ascetic Gotama," people remarked 
to one another, '' folks are coming, passing through kingdoms 
and countries, to converse with him." Often, when he 
happened to halt near the residences of potentates, kings, 
princes, and dignitaries, came on waggons or on elephants, 
to put questions to him or to hear his doctrine. Such a 
scene is described to us in the opening of the ^' Sutra on the 
fruit of asceticism/' and reappears in pictorial representation 
among the reliefs at Bharhut. The Siitra relates how king 
Ajatasattu of Magadha in the ^^ Lotus-night," that is ill the 



MEEXmOS WITS LAITY AND HONKS- 1*7 

full moon of October, the time wlieu tlie lotna blooms, is sitting 
in tke open-air, Burrounded by his nobles on tbe fiat roof of his 
palace. " Then," as it is recorded in that text, " the king of 
Uagadha, Ajataaattn, the son of the Videha princess, uttered 
tliis exclamation : * fair in sooth is this moonlight night, lovely 
in sooth is this moonlight night, grand in sooth is this moon- 
light night, heart-enchanting in sooth is this moonlight night, 
Jiappj omena in sooth giveth this moonlight night. What 
jfiamana or what Brahman shall I go to hear, that my soul may 
le cheered when T hear him ? ' " One counsellor names this 
-and another that teacher : but Jivata, the king's physician. 
Bits on in silence. " Then the ting of Magadha, Ajataaattn, 
the son of Yedehi, spake to Jivaka Kom^rabhacca : 'Why 
art then silent, friend Jiraka ? ' — ' Sire, in my mango groTe 
'he resteth, tho exalted, holy, supreme Buddha, with a great 
iKiiid of disciples, with three hundred monks. Of him, the 
exalted Gotama, there gpreadeth through tho world lordly 
praise in these terms : He, the Exalted One, is the holy, 
supreme Buddha, the wise, the learned, the blessed, who 
■knoweth the universe, tho highest, who tameth man like an 
ox, the teacher of gods and men, the exalted Buddha. Sire, 
go to hear him, the Exalted One : perchance, if thou heare&t 
-Iiim, the Exalted One, thy soul, sire, may be refreshed ' " — 
«id the king orders elephants to be prepared for himself 
and the queens, and the royal procession moves with burning 
torches on that moonlight night through the gate of Hajagaha 
to JJvaka's mango grove, where Buddha is said to have held 
nth the king the famous discourse " On the fruits of 
isceticiam," at the end of which the king joined the Church 
IS a lay-member. 

The pictures, which tho sacred texts give ua of meetings and 
■ceaes like these, are very numerous : no doubt, the concourse 

10* 



14S SUDDBA'8 DAILY LIFE. 

which moved round Buddha's person is faithfullj reflected is 
them. If Buddha comes to the free towns, we hear of hia 
meetings with the noblo families who exercise rule there : at 
Kusindr^ the Mallaa, the ruliug family of that town, go out to 
meet him and issue an edict : " whosoever goeth not to meet the 
Exulted One is liable to a penalty of five hundred pieces." Prom 
the gayest of the Indian free towns, the dissolute and wealtiiy 
Vcsftli, the distinguished yootha of the Licchavi house diive 
out to Buddha with their splendid teams, some in irfiite 
garments with white trimmings, and others in yellow, black, or 
red. Buddha says to his disciples, whon ho sees the LicchaTi 
youths coming in the distance : " who ever, my disciples, among 
you hath not seen the divine host of tho thirty-three gods, let 
him gaze on the host of tho Licchavis, let him behold the host 
of the Licchavis, let him view the host of tho Licchavis." And 
besides tho noble youth of Ves^li, there comes driving with 
not less pomp, to see Buddha, another celebrity of the town, 
tho courtesan Ambap&li. She invites Baddha and his disciples 
to dino in her mango grove, and when they assemble there aii«3. 
dinner la over, she makes a gift of the grove to Bnddha aa^ 
tho Church, 

1V> complete the piotoro of the society which existed ronnc^ 
Buddhn, the class of dialecticians and theological disputants i>^ 
hU shades already flonrishing prosperously in India at thi^ 
period, must not benllowed to pass unnoticed: the distingnishw^ 
Itrahmait, endowed by the king with the revenues of (»■ 
villttgo, Tfho wmoa conducted by a great following, the youu^ 
Ib-nhmuiical scholar, who is sent forth by his teacher, to faring ' 
him tidiujfs of the much-spokrai-of Gotama, and who is edgC 
to irin his s[>are in a logical dispute with the renomiet^ 
lutviM'siu-y, ouatlcss sophistio hair-spHtters, persoas of religion^ 
no w-cU M worldly fttaodtug, who have heard that the 



AM.OTMENT OF THE DAT. 140 

Crotama is staying in the neighbourliood, and who prepare to 
lay traps for him with two-edged questions and to entnnglo 
him in contradiction, whatever be the answer he may give. 

A frequent end of these dialogues is of course that the 
vanquished opponents or the partisans of Buddha invite him 
and hia disciples to dine on the following day : " Sire, may 
it please the Exalted One and his disciples to dine with mo 
to-morrow," And Buddha permits bis consent to be inferred 
.from hia silence- On the following day about noon, when 
dinner is ready, the host sends word to Buddha : " Sire, it is 
time, the dinner is ready;" and Buddha takes his overcoat 
and alms-bowl and goes with his disciples into the town or 
Tillage to the residence of his host. After dinner ut which 
well-to-do hosts offer, except meat dishes, the best which the 
not-very-l usurious cooks of those days could provide, and at 
which the host himself and his fumily serve the guests, when 
the customary hand washing is over, the host takes his placo 
with his family at Buddha's sido, and Buddha addresses to 
Qiem a word of spiritual admonition and instruction. 

If tho day be not filled by an invitation, Buddha, according 
to monastic usages, undertakes his circuit of tho village or 
town in quest of alms. He, as well as his diseiplcs, rises early, 
when the light of dawn appears in the sky, and spends the early 
moments in spiritnal exercises or in converse with his disciples, 
and then he proceeds with his companions towai'ds the town. 
In tho dayswhen his reputation stood at its highest point, and 
his name was named throughout India among the foremost 
might day by day seo that man before whom kings 
Vowed themselves, walking about, alma-bowl in hand, through 
streets and alleys, from house to house, and without uttering 
any request, with downcast look, stand silently waiting until a 
morsel of food waa thrown into his bowl. 



ISO BUDDHA'S DISCIPLES. 

When he had returned from his begging exonrsion and 
had eaten his repast, there followed, aa the Indian climate 
demanded, a time, if not of sleep, at any rate of peaceful 
retirement. Resting in a quiet chamber, or better still in tie 
cool shades of dense foliage, he passed the sultry, close hoon 
of the afternoon in Bohtary contemplation, until the evening 
came on and drew him onco more from holy silence to thft 
bustling concourse of friend and foe. 




Buddha's DiscirtEa. 

From the exterior aspect of that which we must be BatisSeS ■ 
to accept as a picture of this hfe, our description now turns to 
the interior. We have yet to acquaint ourselves with the circle 
of those to whom Buddha's teaching was especially directed, 
the disciples who endeavoured by following him to find for their 
souls the path to rest. 

To all appearance this circle of disciples was even in the 
earliest days hy no means a free society, bound together bj 
merely internal cords, something like tho band of Jesus' 
disciples. We can scarcely doubt that it was from the 
beginning much more of a community of ascetics orguuied 
according to fixed rules, a formal monastic order with BodSu 
at its head. The forms and external technic of a religious HEa ol 
this class had been already established in India long before tb*' 
age of Buddha : a monastic order appeared then to the religkpU 
consciousness to he the reasonable, natural form, in which aloM 
the life of those who are associated in a conunon stroull 
for release could find expression. Aa there was nothing in 
Buddha's attitude generally which could be regarded by bia 
contemporaries as unusual, he had not to introdace 



ORGANIZED COMMUNITY OF DI3CIPLIS3. 



151 



ondamentally new ; on tlie contraiyj it wonld have been an 
lovation if lie had undertaken to preach a way o£ salvation, 
rliich did not proceed on a basis of monastic obserrances. 
The standing formula with which Buddha is supposed to 
ive receired the first believers into this circle has been 
'eserved to us : " Come hither, monk ; well preached is the 
loctrine, walk in purity, to make an end of all suffering." 
Ve know not whether this tradition rests on any autbeutic 
lemory, but the thought which here finds expression seems 
joite correctj that the circle of Buddha's disciples was from 
very beginning a monastic brotherhood, into which the 
tostnlant had to be admitted by an appointed step, with the 
Ifcterance of a prescribed formula. 
The yellow garment of the monk and tonsure are the visible 
ikens of separation from the world and worldly life ; the 
everance of the family bond, the renunciation of all property, 
igorous chastity, are the self-evident obHgations of the 
ascetics who adhere to the son of the Sakya house " 
Barnaul Sakyaputtiya), the oldest term with which the 
teople designated the members of the young Church. 

We know not how far the forms of that corporate life, of 
Vhich we shall give a fuller description later on, severally 
extend back to Baddha's own time, of which we are now 
ipcaking. It is possible, those half- monthly confessional 
gatherings, to which so great significance is attached in the 
umple cult of ancient Buddhism, may have been observed 
\tj Baddha himself with the disciples who were with him. 
Ihe tone which prevailed in the assembly of the believers 
BS calm, composed, ono might say, ceremonious. Were we 
;nuitted to judge by the impression conveyed to us by the 
cred writings, we might opine that the sense of tranquil good- 
ies and the quiet self-conscious joy, by which the associated 



152 BUDDHA'S DI8CIPLE8. 

life of these monks was pervaded, were not sufficient to 
compensate the lack of liveliness in expression and interchange 
of the experiences and emotions of each individual. Occasions 
of rapture were not unfrequent, and were desired as a high 
spiritual good : they consisted rather in quiet transport than 
in ecstatic excitement. Each aspired to them for himself 
alone ; they knew nothing of that popular enthusiasm whidi 
seizes on whole assemblies, where one carries the others away 
and common emotion excites similar visions in the imagination 
of hundreds. To boast before the brothers of experiences of 
ecstasy was strictly forbidden. 

The distinction of caste had no place in this band. Whoso- 
ever will be Buddha's disciple renounces his caste. In one of 
the speeches which the sacred writings put in Buddha's mouthy 
it is said on this subject: ''As the great streams^ O disciples^ 
however many they be, the Grangd, Tamunft, Aciravati, Sarabhu^ 
Mahi, when they reach the great ocean, lose their old name 
and their old descent, and bear only one name, 'the great 
ocean,' so also, my disciples, these four castes. Nobles, 
Brahmans, Vai^ya and (Judra, when they, in accordance with 
the law and doctrine which the Perfect One has preached, 
forsake their home and go into homelessness, lose their old 
name and old paternity, and bear only the one designation, 
' Ascetics, who follow the son of the Sakya house.' " And in 
the discourse " On the fruit of asceticism," in which Buddha 
answers king Ajatasattu's question regarding the reward of 
him who leaves his home and devotes himself to the reb'gious 
life, Buddha speaks of this matter : if a slave or servant of the 
king puts on the yellow garment, and lives as a monk without 
reproach in thought, word and deed, " wouldest thou, the^/' 
asks Baddha of the king, " say : well, then, let this man still 
be my slave and servant, to stand in my presence, bow before 



ATTITUDE TOWARDS CASTE. 



153 



wae, take npon himself to perform my behests, live to miniBter 
io my enjoyments, speak deferentially, hang npon my word ? " 
And the king answers, '* No, sire ; I should bow before him, 
stand before him, invite him to sit down, give him what he 
needed in the way of clothing, food, shelter, and of medicine, 
when he is ill, and I shonld assure him of protection, watch 
and ward, as is becoming." 

Thus the religious garb of Buddha's disciples makes lords 
and commons, Brahmans and Qudras equal. The gospel of 
deliverance is not confined to the high-bom alone, but is given 
*' to the welfare of many people, to the joy of many people, to 
the blessing, welfare and joy of gods and men." 

We can quite understand how historical treatment in our 
tiroes^ which takes a delight in deepening its knowledge of 
Teligioufi movements by bringing into prominence or dis- 
covering theii' social bearings, has attributed to Buddha the 
fole of a social reformer, who is conceived to have broken the 
«haiiiB of caste and won for the poor and humble their piace Jn 
the spiritual kingdom which he founded. But any one who 
Attempts to deficribo Buddha's labours must, out of love for 
truth, resolutely combat the notion that the fame of such an 
exploit, in whatever way he may depict it to himself, belongs 
to Buddha. If any one speaks of a democratic element in 
Buddhism, he must bear in mind that the conception of any 
jreformation of national life, every notion in any way based on 
the foundation of an ideal earthly kingdom, of a religious 
Utopia, was quite foreign to this fraternity. There was 

•thing resembling a social upheaval in India. Buddha's 
Bpirit was a stranger to that enthusiasm, without which no 
can pose as the champion of the oppressed against the 
oppressor. Let the state and society remain what they are; 
the religious man, who as a monk has renounced the world. 



154: BUDDHA*a DI8CIPLE8. 

has no part in its cares and occupations. Caste has no value 
for him, for everything earthly has ceased to affect his interests, 
but it never occurs to him to exercise his influence for its 
abolition or for the mitigation of the severity of its rules for 
those who have lagged behind in worldly surroundings. 

While it is true that Buddhism does not reserve to Brahmans 
only the right of entry into a spiritual life, we must not fall 
into the error of supposing that Buddha was the first to stand 
up for this cause and do battle for it. Before his time, 
probably long before his time, there were religious orders, 
which received members of all castes, both males and females.* 
Side by side with the first exclusive religious order of ancient 
times, the Brahmans, there existed long ere this period, equal 
to the Brahmans in public estimation, the second religious 
order of the Saman&, ^.e., ascetics, admission to whose ranks 
was open to every one who was resolved to renounce a worldly 
career, whether he was high born or low born. This fact is 
recognized in the Buddhist traditions as indisputable, as 
something of which there is no recollection that it had ever 
been otherwise. There is no need of overrating the value of 
these traditions, to find in them a guarantee that Buddha did 
not deem it necessary to undertake a struggle against the 
leaders of society and thought in behalf of the spiritual rights 
of the poor and humble : and least of all is it possible that in 
such a struggle lay the essential character of his life. 

This by no means ends all that might be said against the 
historically untrue conception of Buddha as the victorious 
champion of the lower classes against a haughty aristocracy 
of birth and brain. 

If one speaks of the equality of all within the pale of Buddha^s 

* Vide antea, p. 63. 



BOCIAh POSITION OF THE DISCIPLES. 



155 



confraternity, it ia nob altogefclier superfluous to contrast the 
theoiy, whicli was prevalent oa tliis subject among Buddhists, 
with the actual facts. 

It is the case, as we have seeUj that the Buddhist theory 
acknowledged the equal right of all persona without distinction 
to be received into the order, and it could not but acknow- 
ledge it, or it would have given up the consequences of ita own 
principles. And indeed it does not appear to have been likely 
to occur that postulants should be rejected contrary to the law, 
on the score of caste.* Nevertheless it soema as if the actual 
composition of the band, which surrounded Baddha's person, 
and the composition of the early Church especially, was by no 
ns in due keeping with the theory of eqnality: if even 
3r&hman exclusiveness was not maintained in its full es±ent, 
still a marked leaning to aristocracy seems to have lingered in 
ancient Buddhism aa an inheritance from the past. The sacred 
writings, in what they openly record as well as in what they 
imply between the lines, give us sufficient means of drawing a 
conclusion as to these matters. In the first great address 
■which tradition puts in Buddha's mouth, the sermon at Benares, 
there occurs an expression, which unwittingly characterizes, 
and withal criticizes, as briefly as it did sharply, the state of 
the early Church. Buddha speaks on that occasion of the 
highest consummation of religious aspirations, for the sake of 
which "the sons of noble famQies (kulaputta) leave their 
liomea and go into homelessness," The disciples who gathered 

Othenriso we should expect to find in the Yisaya, tlie codex of 
ecdesiutical law, in which the section treating of tho recoptioTi into the 

r ia cBpeciftlly detailed, distinct regulations directed against this 
mbuae. The Tinaya fihowa clearly that neceaaity existed much more, to 
prevent improper conceHsiona of sdmiaaion (i.e., in the case of persons 
by whose entry into the order the rights of the Third might have been 
iu&ioged), than to guard against improper refusals of admission. 



156 BUDDHA'S DISCIPLES. 

round the teacher coming from the noble house of the Sakyas, 
the descendant of king Ikshv^ku^ were themselves for the 
most part '^ sons of noble families.'^ If we review the ranks of 
personages, whom we are accustomed to meet in the texts, we 
find it clearly indicated, that the real situation was by this 
phrase described conformably to fact ; here are young Brah- 
mans like S&riputta, Moggall&na, Ksuoc&ub., nobles like Ananda^ 
B^ula, Anuruddha, sons of the greatest merchants and highest 
municipal dignitaries, like Tasa, invariably men and youths of 
the most respectable classes of society, and with an education 
in keeping with their social status.* Besides there were the 
numerous ascetics of other sects, converts to the faith of Buddha, 
who undoubtedly occupied, by birth and breeding, the same 
social position.t I am not aware of any instance in which a 

* Among the disciples who surrounded Buddha, the barber TJplQi is 
picked out as being a man of low position. Not quite correctly : as 
barber of the Sakjas he was a courtier, and appears in the tradition as 
the personal friend of the Sakya youths. Vide " Cullavagga," vii, 1-4, 
and, as to the courtly standing of kings' barbers, cf. " Jataka," i, p. 342. 

t It may be observed in this connection that, according to Buddhist 
dogmatic, a Buddha can be bom only as a Brahman or as a noble : in this 
we have it clearly indicated, that the distinctions of caste haye by no 
means vanished or become worthless to the Buddhist consciousness. 
There is still much else which points in this direction with characteristic 
significance. In the narrative of a respected young Brahman who appears 
in the cloister-garden and asks after Buddha, it is recorded : *' Thus the 
disciples communed among themselves, saying : this youth Ambattha U 
respected and of high family, and he is the pupil of a respected Brahman, 
Pokkharasati. Truly not undesired by the Exalted One is such an 
interview with such noble youths " (Ambutthasutta). And Buddha's 
beloved disciple, Ananda, says to his master with reference to a man of 
the noble house of the Mallas, the rulers over Kusinllrlb : " Sire, this 
MaUa Ex)3a, is a respected, well-known person. The good will of such 
a respected and well-known person towards this doctrine and ordinance 
is of the highest importance. So then, sire, may the Exalted One be 



SOCIAL POSITION OF THE DISCIPLES. 157 

Candfkla — ^the Pariah of tliat age — is mentioned in the sacred 
Writings as a member of the order. "For the lower order of 
ihe people, for those bom to toil io manual laboar, hardened 
"by the straggle for existencej the announcement of the con- 
nection of misery with all forms of existence was not mado,* 
nor was the dialectic of the law of the painful concatenation of 

ploasod to bring it about that the llalla Eoja shall bo won to thia doc- 
trine and ordinance." And Buddlia willingly complies with this request 
of his disciple (" Mahiivagga," vi, 3S)- If tho texta permit any person at 
random, not specified by name, to come to Buddlm and to lie taught by 
3him, they describe such a person as a rule as " a certain Brahman " 
(wpeoially muneronB instances occur in the " Anguttara-NiLaya, Tika- 
Kipata"). The text of the Jainas also furnish similar cases. In the simile 
of the lotus flower, which is to be delivered from the miry earth (in tho 
fiutraltridanga}, the flower is not any man at large in need of deliverance, 
lot "a king." 

By this it is not meant to imply that people of humble origin in no 
appear in the old texta as members of the order. Interesting, but 
■tanding quite alone, is the narratiTe which is attributed to the Thera 
(Elder) Sunita in the collection of " Sayings of the Elders " (Theragri tbii) : 
"I haTe come of a humble family, I wos poor and needy. The work 
which I performed was lowly, sweeping the withered flowers (out of 
temples and palaces). I was despised of men, looked down upun and 
lightly esteemed. With submissive mien I showed respect to many. 
Then I beheld the Buddha with his band of monks, as he passed- the 
peat hero, into the most important town of Magadha. Then I cast 
■way my burden and ran to bow myself in reverence before him. From 
jity for me be halted, that highest among men. Tlien I bowed myself 
at the Master's feet, stopped up to him and begged him, the highest 
among all beings, to accept me as a monk. Then said unto mo the 
Master, the eompassionator of all worlds ; ' Come hither, O 

lonk ;' that was the initiation which I received." (Sunita further 
relutcs how he withdrew to the forest, and there wrapt in contemplation, 
Imged for deliverance. The gods came to him and paid him reverence.) 

Then the Master saw me, how the host of the gods surrounded me. 

A. smile broke over his features, and he spake these words : "By holy 

al and chaste living, by restraint and self -repression, thereby a man 

tcomes a Brahman : that is the highest BrahmanhrMd." 



168 BUDDHA'S DI8CIPLE8. 



causes and effects calculated to satisfy ''the poor in spirit." 
^^To the wise belongeth this law," it is said, ''not to the 
foolish." Very unlike the word of that Man, who suffered 
" little children to come unto him, for of such is the kingdom 
of God." For children and those who are like children, the 
arms of Buddha are not opened. 

Of the several personages in the narrower circle of disciples 
we cannot expect to have a life-like individual portrait. Here, 
as everywhere else in the literature of ancient India, we always 
meet merely with types, not individualities. We have already 
touched on this peculiarity : each ^of the chief disciples re- 
sembles every other, so that one might be taken for the other, 
the same conglomerate of perfect purity, perfect internal peace, 
perfect devotion to Buddha, These are not real individuals 
but the incarnated esprit de corps of the pupils of Buddha. 

The names and the more important surroundings in the life 
of the individual disciples are undoubtedly authentic. Tradi- 
tion accords the foremost place among them to those two 
Brahmans, bound to each other from youth up in bonds of 
closest friendship, viz., S&riputta and Moggallana, who meet 
us among the converts gained by Buddha in the outset of his 
career (p. 134, seq.). Throughout his and their long life 
they followed him faithfully, and they died within a short 
interval of each other in extreme old age, not long before 
Buddha^s death. It is S&riputta whom Buddha is believed to 
have declared to be the most prominent among his followers : 
he is, it is said,* like the eldest son of a world-ruling monarch, 
who, following' the king, helps him to put in motion the wheel 
of sovereignty, which he sets rolling over the earth.f Nearest 

* " Anguttara Nikaya, Pancaka-Nipata." 

t By this description of Sariputta as " eldest son of the Church," it 
was not contemplated, however, that ho might be called to be Buddha's 



SAEIPnTTA, mooqallAna, Asanda. 



ir.[ 



to these two BrahmanB, among those who stand closest to 
Buddha, ia his owa consin, Ananda, who, when still a youth, 
Adopted the garb of a monk in company with a whole group of 
jonng nobles of Sakya family ;* his brother Devadatta, whom 
we shall discover to be the apostate and traitor in the band, 
Was likewise among these Sakyas. The care of Buddha's person 
and the ordinary necessities of his daily life, were committed 
io Ananda's hands : ofl;en, when Buddha had left all the other 
disciples behind, it is Ananda alone who accompanies him, 
•nd the narrative of Buddha's last journeyingB and of his fare- 
well address gives, as we shall see, to Ananda a rolt; which 
may well entitle him to be above all others known as the 
disciple " whom the Master loved." Another member of this 
iwlecb circle was UpS,Ii, who had formerly served the noble 
Bakyas as a barber, and who entered Buddha's order at the 
same time with his masters. He is frequently mentioned in 
the sacred writings as the first propounder of the ecclesiastical 
of the young Church ; it is not improbable that he had a, 
special share in the framing and the scholastic transmission of 
■the old confessional liturgy, from which has sprung the whole 
ecclesiastical literature of Buddhism. Buddha's own son, 
BAhula, whom ho had begotten before leaving his father's roof, 
*l30 entered the order, and is not unfrequently mentioned with 
the great disciples already named ; a prominent part, however, 
he does not seem to have played in this band. 

successor, tlio head of the Cliurch after the Master's deatli. The aotiou 
of any head of the Church but Buddha himself is, as we shall see, foreign 
to Buddhism, independontly of the fact that tradition could not have 
«]u>3en a person more iU-odapted to give espreBsion to this idea, than a. 
diain.ple, who died heforo Buddha. 

• One of the few chronological statements contained in the sacred tests 
states that this happened twentj-five years before Buddha's death 
<■ TheragMhfi," fol. gai o£ the Phayre MS.). 



ICO BUDDHA'S DI8CIPLE8. 

The Judas Iscariot among Buddha^s disciples — except that 
his machinations were unsuccessful — is^ as narrated^ Buddha's 
own cousin^ Devadatta.* Stimulated by ambition he seems to 
have aimed at stepping into the place of Buddha^ who had 
already grown old^ and at getting the management of the 
community into his own hands. When Buddha does not 
permit this^ he attempts^ in conjunction with Aj&tasattn^ the son 
of king Bimbis{ira, who is aiming at his father's throne, to put 
the Master out of the way. Their projects fail : miracles are 
related, by which the life of the Holy One is preserved : the 
defeated murderers are attacked by fear and trembling, when 
they come near Buddha ; he speaks gently to them, and they 
are converted to the faith ; the piece of rock which is intended 
to crush Buddha, is interrupted by two converging mountain 
peaks, so that it merely grazes Buddha's foot: the wild 
elephant, which is driven against Buddha in a narrow street, 
remains standing before him, paralyzed by the magic power of 
his ^^ jfriendly thought," and then turns tamely back. At last 
Devadatta is said to have attempted to obtain the leadership of 
the Church in another way. He makes five propositions, of 
which we possess an account seemingly quite above suspicion.f 
On a number of points which , affect monastic life, on which 
Buddha allowed a certain amount of freedom of action at the 
discretion of the individual member, Devadatta attempted to 
substitute a more rigorous ascetic praxis for these liberal 



* The oldest form of the narratives regarding Devadatta is to be found 
in the seventh book of the " Cullavagga." 

t " Cullavagga." It is possible, but naturally it cannot be demonstrated, 
that the history of these five propositions and the schism brought about 
by Devadatta are the only historical kernel of these narratives, and that 
the attempts at murder are an invention, which the orthodox Buddhist 
tried to tack on to the memory of the hated heretic. 



VFlLl, KAUVLA, DEVABATTA. 



IGl 



egnlatJons : for instance, lie iQsisted that a monk should have 
lis camping-plaoe all hia life long in the jungle, while Buddha 
Kimitted him to live in the neighbourhood of towns and 
rillages, and was himself accustomed to live there; a monk 
was, furthermore, to livo only on the contributions which he 
wllected on his begging excursions, and was not to accept any 
ovitations to dine with the pioua laity; he was to dresa 
laelf only in clothes made up of gathered rags ; and more 
if the like. Whoever acted otherwise, would be punished 
nth expulsion from the commnnity. Devadatta proposed 
these rules as tho fundamental principles of a true and ingid 
ipiritual life, in opposition to Buddha's arrangements as a 
Bx concession to human frailties, and he tried to draw off 
o himself the monks around Buddha: if we may believe 
tradition, with a transient success, which then turned into 
total discomSture. Bevadatta is said to have come to a 
leplorable end.* 

These are the most prominent figures in the band of Buddha's 
liaciples ; bat disciples in deed and in truth those alone are 
who give np all that is earthly to, as the formula pats it, 
"walk in holiness, to pnt an end to all suffering:" monks and 
IS, with the Indian designations, "bhikkhu" {beggar, in.) 
|bnd "bhikkhnui " (beggar, /,). But, aa in the history of Jesns, 
iros and Nicodemus, Mary and Martha, stand side by side 
with Peter and John, so Buddhism also, side by aide with the 
male and female mendicants recognize male and female votaries 
(opasaka, yii. ; npfLsika,/.) of Buddha and his law, believers, 
who hononr Buddha as the holy preacher of deliverance and his 

• According to the later wide-spread veraiOQ of the narrative, the 
jawB of hell opened and swallowed Iiim alive ; tlio narrative of the 
"Cnliavagga," as a matter of course, represents him going to hell, but 
aaj& nothing of this departure to Iieli in living form. 

11 



162 BUDDEA8 DISOIPLES. 

word as the word of truth, but who remain in their worldly 
position, in wedlock, in the possession of their property, and 
make themselves useful to the Church, as far as they can, by 
gifts and charities of every kind. Yet the monks alone, nofc 
the lay-adherents, are exclusively members of the Church.* 

The formation of this wider circle of worldly beUeyers 
has been regarded as an inconsistent relaxation of original 
Buddhism, as a concession on the part of clear and rigorons 
thought to practicability and the weakness of human nature. 
It has also been supposed that in the oldest texts the distinc- 
tion to be found is only between professed believers, i.e,, monks, 
and non-believers, i.e., the laity, but not that of believing 
monks and believing laity. This is wholly erironeons. The 
oldest traditions which we possess speak of the laify, who 

* A close examination of the relations between the monks proper and 
lay-associates must obyiouslj be reserved for the sketch of *' Ghmch 
Life " (part iii). It will suffice in this place to point out that the idea of 
lay-members (upasaka) in Buddhist Church-law cannot be taken in the 
same sense as a technical term as that of monks (bhikkhu) : in the latter 
idea there is inyolved a definite de jure relationship, in the former Ihe 
relationship is rather de facto than inherently de jure. For anyone 
to become a bhikkhu a special procedure is necessaiy on the part of the 
Church to complete the fact; the case of a person who desires to be 
considered an upasaka expresses this, of course, and the texts have 
in this case also, as for everything that occurs with £reqiiencyy a 
definite formula (''I take, sire, my .refuge with the Exalted One, and 
with the Doctrine, and with the Order of the disciples; may the 
Exalted One accept me as his votary [upasaka] from this day forward 
through my life, me who have taken refuge with him"), but no special 
procedure follows, no recognition of the upasaka as such on the part 
of the Church. Forthermore there were no ties which prohibited the 
Buddhist upasaka from being at the same time the up&saka of another 
Church (cf. "Cullav.," v, 20, 3), so that it appears in every way 
impossible to identify the position of the upasaka with anything we 
understand to be among the components of a Church. 



ZAT- ASSOCIATES, BIMBISAEA. ETC. ■*!«».' 

profess to be friends and votaries of Buddha and the order, 
and the nature of the case compels us to attach credit to those 
fcaditions. There must in fact, since ever there were mendi- 
cant ntonts in India, have also been pious laymen, who gave 
something to these religious beggars, and there must also soon 
have grown up, whether with or without recognized Forms and 
names, it is quite immaterial, a certain relationship between 
definite monks or monastic orders and a definite laity, who 
felt themselves bound to each other, the one class to receive 
spiritual instruction, the other to obtain the little that they 
needed for their maintenance. And more than a connection 
of this class, the relation which subsisted between Buddha's 
order and the lay-behevers has not been. 

Princes and nobles, Brahmans and merchants, we find 
among those who "took their refuge in Buddha, the Law, and 
■&.e Order," !.e., who made their profession as lay-believers ; 
.the wealthy and the aristocrat, it seems, here also exceeded 
mhe poor ; to reach the humble and wretched, the Borrowing, 
who endured yet another sorrow than the great universal 
Borrow of inpermanence, was not the province of Buddhism, 

Prominent among the " adherents " stand the two royal 
iSriraidfi of Buddha, Bimbisftra, the ruler of Magadha, and 
l^senadi, the ruler of Kosala, both approximately of the same 
age as Buddha, and throughout their hves true protectors of his 
Church. Then comes Jivakaj the renowned physician-in- 
erdinary to Bimbisilra,* who was appointed by tlie king to 
inndertake medical attendance, not on him and his women only, 
but also on Buddha and Buddha's order ; nejtt, the merchant 
An&thapindika, who had presented to the order the garden of 
7etavana, Buddha's favourite place of resort. In all important 
• The story of Jivaka and the wonderful cures which he effects is 
Minted in the Eighth Book of the " Mohuvagga." 

11* 



164 WOMEK. 

places whicli Baddha touched in the conrse of his wanderings, 
he found bands of such hiy-believerSj who went out to meet 
him, arranged for assemblies^ in which Buddha spoke^ who 
gave him and his companions their meals^ who phiced their 
residences and gardens at their disposal^ or made them oyer to 
the order as Church property. If he went wandering aboni 
jrith hundreds of his disciples^ pious votaries were sure to 
tccompany him on his journey with carts and waggons^ and 
they brought necessaries of hte, salt^ and oil with them, f<nr 
each in his turn to prepare the wanderer a meal, and crowds of 
needy folk followed in their train to snatch the remains of 
these provisions. 



WOMIS. 

Baddha and his disciples did not and could not fail to come 
into contact with women : every begging excursion,^ eveij 
repast at the house of a lay-member^ at which the female 
members of the household appeared with the master of the 
house and listened after the repast to spiritual iostmcticHii, 
necessarily involved such meetings. The seclusion of womoi 
from the outer worlds which later custom has enjoined^ was 
q^oite unheard of in ancient India ; women took thar share in 
the intellectual life of the people, and the most ftg^K^^^ ^nd 
tenderest of the epic poems of the Tru^wmr^ show us how well 
they could understand and apprec:^te true womanhood. 

But was it possible for a mind like Baddha,. who in the aevere 
determination of renunciation had torn ^fma<Jr sway from all 



* It wasv asa rul<;» wonneiL w!io» in the booses of ti^ Iacfcy» 
tilfi ittffuk?? wbtf went OIL bi!g^cux$ «sxinirsiQii:$y ami bamLid <ifc*w^ fiiod iato 



FEMALE DISCIPLES. 



165 



Si&t is attractivo and lovely in this world, was he given the 

acuity to understand and to valao woman's nature? And were 
1086 ideals, whicli evoked the exertions of Buddha's disciples, 
Icolated in their impersonal transcondentaliam, to kindle 
id satisfy women's hearts, to be even realized in their rigorous 
id stem consequences by womanly feeling ? 
Women are to the Buddhist of all the snares which the 
[npter has spread for men, the most dangerous ; in women 
3 embodied all the powers of infatuation, which bind the 
ind of the world. The ancient story books of the Buddhists 
B full of naiTatives and illustrations of the incoiTigiblo 
tifiee of women. " TJnfathomably deep, like a fiah'a course 
tlie water," the moral of one such history runs, "is the 

baracter of women, robbers with many artifices, with whom 
ith is hard to find, to whom a lie is like the truth and the 
■th like a lie." — "Master," Buddha is asked by Ananda, 

how shall we behave before women ? " — "Yon should ehun 
gaze, Ananda." — " But if we do see them, master, what 
are we to do ? " — " Not speak to them, Ananda." — " But 

\ we do speak to them, master, what then?"— "Then you 

n&b watoh over yourselves, Ananda." 

"Wo are told, and some trustworthy memory may possibly 



at the bottom of this traditi 
m. were permitted to be recei 
kt it was only with grave 



ion, that for a long time only 
ved into Buddha's order, and 
isgiving that Buddha yielded 



the pressure of his foster-mother, MahfipajSpati, to receive 
also as his disciples.* " As in a field of rice, Ananda, 



**'CiiUavagga,"x, 1. Agreeably to this, nuns do not appear as disciples 

the narratires of Bnddhti's first experiences as a teacher. — The con- 
luonal formulary, " FELtimokkha," notably one of the oldest literary 
.nmcnts of Buddhism, mentions the nuns at erery step, and king 
■oka also remembers them in the Edict of Eairat. 



166 WOMEN. 

wUch is in full vigonr^ the disease breaks oat whicli is called 
mildew^ — ^then the vigour of that field of rice continues no 
longer^ — so also^ Ananda^ if women be admitted in a doctrine 
and to an order to renounce the world and go into home- 
lessness^ holy living does not last long. — If^ Ananda^ in tlie 
doctrine and the order^ which the Perfect One has founded^ 
it were not conceded to women to go out from their homes 
into homelessness, holy living would remain preserved, 
Ananda, for a long time ; the pure doctrine would abide 
for a thousand years. *But now, Ananda, that, in the doctrine 
and order, which the Perfect One has founded, women 
renounce the world and go into homelessness, under these 
circumstances, Ananda, holy living will not be long preserved ; 
only five hundred years, Ananda, will the doctrine of the truth 
abide.'' 

The narratives of the sacred writings, accordingly, unmis- 
takably keep the female disciples, who have donned the garb 
of nuns, at a certain distance from the master, both in spiritaal 
offices and in daily life. Buddhism has not had a Mary of 
Bethany. Buddha announces the rules, which he lays down 
for the order of nuns, to the monks and merely causes them 
to reach the nuns through them : and these regulations keep 
the nuns as regards the monks in perfectly submissive sub- 
jection : throughout they are treated merely as a tolerated, 
and reluctantly tolerated, element in the Church. Not one 
of the female disciples is near the master when he is dying, 
and it is made a matter of reproach to Ananda, that he has 
granted access to Buddha's corpse to women, whose tears 
bedewed the corpse. '^ Kriton, let some one lead this woman 
home," says Socrates, when Xanthippe appears in his prison 
to take a last farewell of him. 

Thus, between the spirit, which animated Buddha and 



FEMALE DiaCIPLES. 



1G5 



at is attractive and lovely in thia world, was he given the 
icalty to understand and to value woman's nature? And were 
ihose ideala, which evoked the exertions of Buddha's disciples, 
alculated in their impersonal transcendentalism, to kindle 
md satisfy women's hearts, to be even realized in their rigorous 
ftnd stem consequences by womanly feeling ? 

Women are to the Buddhist of all the snares which the 
mpter has spread for men, the most dangerous ; in women 
e embodied all the powers of infatuation, which bind the 
mind of the world. The ancient story books of the Buddhists 
we full of naiTativea and illustrations of the incorrigible 
Irtifice of women. " Unfathomably deep, like a fish's course 
in the water," the moral of one such history runs, "is the 
(huacter of women, robbers with. many artifices, with whom 
truth is hard to find, to whom a lie is Uke the truth and the 
trath like a lie." — "Master," Buddha is asked by Ananda, 
"how shall we behave before women ? " — " You should shnn 
ir gaze, Ananda." — " But if we do see them, master, what 
II are we to do ? " — " Not speak to them, Ananda." — " But 
K we do speak to them, master, what then ? " — " Then you 
Bat watch over yourselves, Ananda." 

ffe are told, and some trustworthy memory may possibly 
le It the bottom of this tradition, that for a long time only 
mh were permitted to be received into Buddha's order, and 
lUt it was only with grave misgiving that Bnddha yielded 
fa tie pressure of his foster-mother, MabiVpajapati, to receive 
•omen also as Ixis disciples.* " As in a field of rice, Ananda, 

*"CiiUaTBgga,"x, 1. Agreeably to tlus.nansdonot appear as disciples 

tie nanatiTeB of Eaddha's tirst experiences as a teacher. — The con- 

fonnularj, " Patimokkho," notably one of tbe oldest literary 

of Baddhiun, meationB the nnn^ at every step, and king 

tiio remembers them ia the Edict of Bairat. 



I 
l^S WOMEN. 

After dinner Vis&kha approaches him and says: ''Eight 
requests, sire, I make of the Exalted One " — '' The Perfect, 
Visakhft, are too exalted to be able to grant every wish/' — 
*' What is allowable, sire, and what is imblamable/' — " Then 
?peak, Vis&khft." 

^' I desire as long as I live, sire, to give the brotherhood 
clothes for the rainy season, to give food to stranger monks^ 
who arrive here, to give food to monks who are passing 
through, to give food to sick brethren, to give food to the^ 
attendants on the sick, to give medicine to the sick, to 
distribute a daily dole of cooked rice, to give bathing dresses* 
to the sisterhood of nuns/* 

''What object hast thou in view, Vis&kh&, that thou* 
approachest the Perfect One with these eight wishes ?'' 

(Vis&kh& now explains her several wishes. So she says :) 

" A monk, O sire, who comes from foreign parts, does not 
know the streets and lanes and he goes about weary to collect 
alms. When he has partaken of the food which I shall provide 
for the monks who arrive, he may then, when he has inquired 
the ways and the streets, go out refreshed to collect alms. 
This end, O sire, I have in view : therefore I desire as long as 
I live to give food to monks when they arrive. — ^And again,, 
sire, a monk who is travelling through will, if he has to seek 
for food for himself, fall behind his caravan, or will arrive late 
when he intends to rest, and he wiU walk on his jonmey 
wearily. If he has partaken of the food which I shall have^ 
provided for monks who are passing through, he will not fall 
behind his caravan, and he will arrive in proper time at the 
place where he intends to rest, and he will walk on his journey 
refreshed. This object I have in view, sire ; therefore I desire,, 
as long as I live, to give food to the monks who are passing 
through. — ^It has happened, sire, that nuns were bathing naked 



BUDDHA'S CONVERSATION WITH VISAKhA. 169 

together in the river Aciravati (Rapti) at the same bathing 
place with prostitutes. The prostitutes, sire, mocked the 
BUDS, saying: 'Most respected ones, what do you need of 
your holy life, as long as you are young ? Is it not proper to 
gratify desire ? When you are old you may begin a holy life,. 
so both will be yours, this life and that which is to come.* 
When the nuns, sire, were thus mocked by the prostitutes,. 
they were put out of temper. Improper, sire, is nakedness for 
a woman, obscene and objectionable. This, sire, I consider;, 
therefore I desire, as long as I live, to provide bathing-dresses 
for the sisterhood of nuns.'' 

And Buddha says : '^ Good, VisS,kh& ! thou doest well, that 
thou, seeking this reward, askest the Perfect One for these- 
eight wishes. I grant thee these #ight wishes, Vis&khft.'' 

Then the Holy One praised Vis&kh&, the mother of Migara,. 
in these words : 



" Who gives food and drink with generous readiness, 
The follower of the Holy One, rich in virtues. 
Who, without grudging, gives gifts for the reward of heaven. 
Who puts an end to pain, is ever intent on bringing joy. 
Obtains the reward of a heavenly life. 
She walks the shining, commendable path. 
Free from pain, she joyfully reaps for a very long period 
The reward of good deeds in the happy realm of heaven above." 

Pictures like this of VisS,kh&, benefactresses of the Church^j 
with their inexhaustible religious zeal, and their not less 
inexhaustible resources of money, are certainly, if anything 
ever was, drawn from the life of India in those days : they 
cannot be left out of sight, if we desire to get an idea of the 
actors who made the oldest Buddhist community what it 
was. 



170 BUDDHA'S OPPONSIfTS. 

Buddha's Opponents. 

Now that we have made the acgnaintanoe of diadpleB and 
.friends^ our next inquiry is about the enemies and about the 
battles in which the new gospel had to prove its strength. If 
we might believe the Buddhist texts on this subject^ Buddha's 
•career was nothing but one great uninterrupted victorious 
march. Wherever he comes, the masses^ it ia told us time 
after time^ flock to him. The other teachers are deserted; 
they are silent if he " raises his lion voice in the assemblies.^' 
Whoever hears his discourse^ is converted. 

This picture certainly does not wholly correspond with the 
truths and we can^ on some points at leasts learn the actual 
&cts tolerably well. 

Above all it must be borne in mind that Buddha did not 
find himself like other reformers face to &ce with a greats 
united power^ capable of resistance^ and determined to resist^ 
in which was embodied the old which he attacked and desired 
to replace by the new. 

People are accustomed to speak of Buddhism as opposed to 
Brahmanism^ somewhat in the way that it is allowable to speak 
of Lutheranism as an opponent of the papacy. But if they 
mean, as they might be inclined from this parallel to do, to 
picture to themselves a kind of Brahmanical Church, which is 
assailed by Buddha, which opposed its rjBsistance to its 
operations like the resistance of the party in possession to an 
upstart, they are mistaken. Buddha did not find himself in 
the presence of a Brahmanical hierarchy, embracing the whole 
people, overshading the whole popular life. In the eastern 
districts religious movement, allowing itself free play, had 
ramified in many separate directions : sects upon sects exist 
side by side, at peace or at war as circumstances determiiied. 
The champions of the Veda, of Brahmanism, are really not 



BUDDHA ASD BRAEMASISM. 



171 



more than one among many parties, and, indeed, to all appear- 
ance, by no means an especially powerful one. They wanted 
altogether compact organization ; least of all did they, at any 
rate in the territorios in which Buddha's work was prosecuted, 
represent a atate-Church or had they power to enforce their 
commands by the assistance of worldly power. Their personal 
prestige was by no means undisputed there. From the groat 
Brahman, who as an officer of high rank oppressed the people 
in the king's name and then deceived the king in turn, down 
to the small clerics, who, iE invited to dine, made themselves 
disagreeably conspicuous by their behaviour at table, their 
personal appearance and manner of life provoked criticism, and 
men did not withhold that criticism. Long since a Samana 
(an ascetic) had come to be not a hair lighter in popular 
estimation than a Brahman. The Veda, the great patent of 
nobility of the Brahman class could not possibly give them a 
claim to power and popularity, such even as that the Pharisees 
had in the Mosaic law. Who among the people cared for the 
Veda, for the abstruse theories of sacrifice, the language of 
which no one understood, or for the ancient hymns, the 
language of which was still less understood, the hymns to 
forgotten deities, the heirlooms of grammai-ians and antiquaries? 
The propitiatory sacrifice with its plain external conception of 
guilt and purification, behind which the greedy exaction of 
a priestcraft lay concealed, must have kept alive in earnest 
and clear thinking natures, ill-will towards this priesthood. 

Thus Brahmanism was not to Buddha an enemy whose 
conquest he would have been unable to effect. He may often 
have found the local influence of respected Brahmans an 
obstacle in his path,* bat against this a hundred other 

• The insignificant part whieli the wcatera portions of Hindostan (tLo 
countrieg of the Kuru-Poncila, and so fortli) play in the narration of 



172 BUDDHA'S OPPONENTS. 

Brahmans stood by him as his disciples or had declared for 
him as lay members.* Here no straggle on a large scale has 
taken place. The Brahmans had not the weapons of the world 
without at their disposal in such a warfare^ and where the 
arbitrament was of intellectnal weapons, they were sure to 
lose. 

Buddha discredited the sacrificial system ; he censured with 
bitter irony the knowledge of Vedic scribes as sheer folly, if 
not as shameless swindle ; Brahmanical pride of caste was noi 
more gently handled. He who repeats the lays and sayings of 
the poetic sages of antiquity and then fancies himself a sage,, 
is like a plebeian or a slave, who should mount up to the placo 
from which a king has addressed his retinue, and speak the- 
same words and then fancy himself also a king.f The pupil 
believes what the teacher has believed, the teacher what he has 
received from the teachers before him. "Like a chain of 
blind men, I take it, is the discourse of the Brahmans : he who- 
is in front sees nothing, he who is in the middle sees nothings 
he who is behind sees nothing, what then ? Is not, if this be 
so, the faith of the Brahmans vain V J 

The classical expression of the views of the old Buddhist 



Buddha's wanderings arises not only from their remoteness, bui also in 
a not less degrees from the more powerful position which the Brahmans. 
ocenpied there, in the old home of the Yedic faith. When the law of 
Mann (9, 225) gives authority for expelling all h|retical people from the 
state, there is in this a claim of Brahmanism which a code framed in the 
east coxdd scarcely have dared to adyance. 

* It is worthy of observation that the usage of the Buddhist texts in no 
way connects with the word " Brahman " the notion of an enemy to the 
cause of Buddha, in the way that in the 'New Testament Pharisees and 
Scribes appear as the standing enemies of Jesus. 

t Sic Ambattasutta (Digha-Nikaya). 

X Cankisuttanta (Majjhima N.). 



CRITICISiL OF SACMFICUL SYSTEMS. 



17; 



Chcrch, and, wb may say, of Buddha, regarding the valae of 
the Vedic sacrificial cult, is contained in a convGrsation of 
Buddha mth a Brahman of position, wha had asked Buddha 
about the essentials of a proper sacrifice,* 

Buddha then narrates the story of a powerful and successful 
king of bygone days, who, after splendid victories and the 
conquest of the whole earth, formed the resolution of making 
a great offering to the gods. He summoned his family priest 
and asked his instructions, as to how he should set about his 
project. The priest admonishes him before offering a sacrifice, 
to establish first of all peace, prosperity, and security in his 
kingdom. Not until all injustices in the land are repaired, 
does he proceed to sacrifice. And at his sacrifice no life of 
sentient creature is taken ; no cattle and sheep are killed ; no 
trees are hewn down; no grass is cut. The servants of the 
king perform their work in connection with the sacrifice, not 
under pressure and in tears, in fear of the overseer's Tcrge ; 
each worka_ willingly, as his own inclination prompts him. 
Libations of milk, oil, and honey are oSered, and thus the 
king's sacrifice ia performed. But there is, Buddha goes on 
to say, yet another offering, easier to perform than that, and 
yet higher and more blessed : where men make gifts to picas 
monks, where men bnild dwelling-places for Buddha and his 
order. And there is yet a higher offering ; where a man with 
believingheart takes his refuge with Buddha, with the Doctrine, 
with the Order, when a man robs no being of its life, when a 
man puts far from him lying and deceit. And there is yet a 
higher offering ; where a man separates as a monk from joy and 
sorrow and sinks himself in holy repose. But the highest 
offering, which a man can bring, and the highest blessing of 



* EdtftdaDtasuttaofthcDIgha-Nlk&fB. 



174: BUDDHA'S OPPONENTS. 

which he can be made participator^ is, when he obtains 
deliverance and gains this knowledge : I shall not again return 
to this world. This is the highest perfection of all offering. 

Thus speaks Buddha; the Brahman hears his discourse 
believingly, and says : " I take my refuge with Buddha, with 
the Doctrine and with the Order/' He had himself intended 
to perform a great sacrifice, and had hundreds of animals 
ready for it. '^ I let them loose and set them free/' he says, 
" let them enjoy green grass, let them drink cool water, let 
the cool wind fan them/' 

The expressions which we here find need no commentary to 
clearly elicit from them the attitude of the Buddhists towards 
the ancient cult. We do not hear how the Brahmans on their 
part fortified their position, what procedure they adopted 
against the new faith; but, if we possessed Brahmanical 
sketches of Buddha's appearance, our conviction would 
hardly be thereby destroyed, that from the very beginning 
the intrinsic superiority as well as the external advantage in 
this struggle was on the side of Buddha's disciples. 

Buddha found in the rival ascetic leaders and their monastic 
orders more subtle and dangerous opponents than in the 
champions of the ancient faith. The spirit which animated 
many of these communities was allied to the spirit on which 
Buddha's own work was based. If we read the sacred books 
of the Jainas, it seems as if we heard Buddhists speaking. 

We have no quite reliable opinion as to the terms upon 
which the monks of the rival communities mixed with each 
other. Openly expressed enmity appears to have not always 
prevailed ; it was not unusual for members to visit each other 
in their hermitages, to exchange civilities, to speak to each 
other coolly and temperately on dogmatic subjects. That 
there was notwithstanding an incessant play of intrigue in 



BELATIOHa WITH OTHER HONASTIO ORDERS. 



175 



progress will be obvious ; where the object in view was to 
deprive each other of the protection of influential personages 
no tronble was spared. King Asoka fonnd occasion in hia 
edicts to point out to the spiritual brotherlioods, that he is 
only doing an injury to his own faith who thinks to set it in 
a clear light by abusing the adherents of another faith. But 
whether Buddha himself and the disciples immediately romid 
him descended from the heights of holy meekness, on which 
the orthodox tradition enthrones them, to this religious 
scramblCj is a point on which we are forbidden to hazard 
a conjecture. 

What more than anything else distinguished Buddha from 
the most of his rivals was hia dissentient attitude towards the 
self-mortifications, in which they saw the path to deliverance.* 
We saw how, according to tradition, Buddha himself in the 
period of search through which he passed when a young man, 
had endured seif-morfcifications in their moat rigorous severi^, 
and had found out their fruitlessnesa in hia own case. What 
drives earthly thoughts out of the soul is not fasting and 
bodily agony, but self -culture, above all the struggle for 
knowledge, and for this struggle man derives the power only 
from an estemal life, which is far removed alike from luxury 
and from privation, and still more from self-inflicted pain. In 
• I take the following paaflages from one of the sacred texts of tie 
INiggantha- or Jaina-sect, founded by Buddha's contemporarj If&ta- 
patta: "By day motionless as a etatue, tlte countenance turned to flie 
nm, permitting himself to bum on a place erposed to the aun'a rays, by 
night coffering, unclothed . . . bj this conspicuous, great, intense, 
prominent, precious, elBcacioufi, rich, promising, noble, exalted, high, 
supreme, conspicuous, very potent eserciso of penance he appeared very 
debihtated . . . with penance richly covered, bat impoverished in 
fle«h and blood like a Are covered over with heaps of aahea, ahimng 
hrilhantly through penance, through radiance, in nohlenesa of the 
radiance of penance, there he stands." 



176 BUDDHA'S VIEWS AS TO PSNANOSS. 

the sermon at Benares^ in which tradition has undertaken to 
draw np something like a programme of Baddha's operations^* 
polemic directed against those e^rs of gloomy ascetics is not 
absent ; the way which leads to deliverance keeps itself as &r 
from all self-mortification as it steers clear on the other side of 
earthly pleasure ; the one as well as the other is there termed 
xmworthy and vain. The true spiritual Ufe is once compared 
<to a lute^ the strings of which must not be too loose nor 
stretched too tensely^ if it is to give a correct sound. The 
.balance of the faculties^ the internal harmony^ is that which 
Buddha commands his followers to aim at securing. 

So &r as moral living can maintain a healthy development 
on the ground and within the limits to which Indian monasti- 
-cism is once for all by its nature confined^ so &r we must claim 
for Buddha's work the merit of such inherent soundness. He 
bas seen through the enveloping husks which conceal the 
kernel of the ethical more clearly than his contemporaries, 
and has bequeathed to the community of his followers this 
knowledge of the subject, the clear rejection of everything 
which is foreign thereto. It may be chance that has given his 
doctrine the victory over the doctrines of his rival contem- 
poraries centuries after the deaths of all; but possibly the 
znore the darkness which covers these centuries for us is 
dissipated, this game of chance may the more resemble the 
operation of a law of necessity. 

Buddha's Method op Teaching. 

Our task is now to give some idea of the form of Buddha's 
tteaching; — ^we reserve the attempt to unfold its purport for 
*he foUovdng Part. Buddha's whole work was carried on by 

• See above p. 127. 



TBE DIALECT WEIOB HE SPOEE. 



X77 



oral communication ; ■written he has not. Writing itself was 
in all probability not unknown in iia day, bnt certainly book- 
writing was unheard of. Brief written communication Sj brief 
■written notifications, appear to have been common in India eyen 
Bt that time : books were not writteUj but learned by rote and 
tanght from memory. Those extensive treatises, such as were 
addressed by the apostles in the form of letters to the early 
Christian Churches, and which cast so rich a light on the 
liistory of those Chnrcbes and circles of thought, are wholly 
ivanting in Buddhist literature. 

Bnddha spoke, not Sanscrit, but, like every one around him,* 
the popular idiom of eastern Hindostan. We can by inscrip- 
tions and the analogies of a closely allied, probably South 
Indian popular dialect, the Pflli, obtain an adequate picture of 
this dialect : a soft and agreeably- sounding language, which is 
distinguished from the Sanscrit by the same smoothing down 
of the conjoined consonants, the same tendency to vocalic 
terminations, which gives the Italian its character as opposed 
to the Latin language. People said mutfe for muJdas {" free "), 
vijju for vidyut ("the lightning "), as the Italian says fatti for 
facti, ama for amat. The syntax was simple and not very well 
suited to express fine and sharp shades of dialectic. 

The BrahmaQH also of (his eastern land apolce undonbtedly in their 
daily intercourse tlie popular dialect ; had the Sanacrit been here, as we 
find it later in the dramas, the language of the upper claseee, some trace 
of this circumstance must have shown itself in the saercd Pfili texts. 
But, BS far as I know, there is no reference to he found itt them (except, 
perhaps, at " CullaTagga," v, 33) to the Sanscrit, whicli to all appear- 

8 waB not, setting aside the Brahman schools, known in wider circles. 

And this is not at all difficult to account for, aa the Sanscrit belongs 

originally to the western parts of Hindostan ; its universal employment 

the language of llio educated classes through all India, it has, as also 

the inscriptions teach us, first acquired at a much later period. 

12 



178 BUDDHA'S METHOD OF TEACHING. 

In the early Churph^ moreover^ no special importance was 
attached to the dialect, in which the doctrine of deliverance 
had been first preached. Buddha's words are confined to no 
langnage. ^' I direct^ O disciples^'' tradition* makes him say, 
''that each individoal learn the words of Buddha in his own 
tongue/' 

Anyone who reads the lectures which the sacred texts put 
in Buddha's mouth, can scarcely refrain from asking whether 
the form, in which he himself taught his doctrine, can possibly 
have resembled these self-same panoramas of abstract and 
often abstruse structures with their endless repetitions piled 
high upon each other. Should we not like to see in the picture 
of those early times something else beside merely a living spirit 
operating with the fresh vigour of youth in the circle of master 
and pupils, and should we not for that reason be inclined to 
eliminate from this picture all that imparts to it an air of 
tension and fiction ? And at the same time is it natural, when 
we endeavour to obtain a representation of Buddha's teaching 
and preaching, for us to resort to another source beside 
the tradition of the Buddhist Church, that is, when thought, 
consciously or unconsciously, recurs to the teaching of Jesus ? 
Those homely sentences with their totally unstudied external 
setting and their deep internal wealth, seem to wear that very 
form, from which we may infer that it, or some similar form, 
may have accompanied the dissemination of the Buddhist 
doctrine, as long as the spirit of the early ages survived. 

Beflections such as these are not easy to repress, but 
historical treatment, before committing itself to them, will do 
well not to leave untested the ground and foundation on which 
they rest. 

It cannot be forgotten that the frmdamental differences of 

* " Cullayagga." v, 33, 1. 



^^^^ SCHOLASTIC CBAEACTER OF HIS DISCOVRSES. 179 

ta thoughts and the dispositions with which the early 
Jhristian and early Buddhist communities dealt, were such 
hat these differences must also find expression in the method 
f religious instruction. 

Where the pure sentiment o£ the simple, believing heart is 
opreme, where there are children to whom the Father in 
ieaven has given His kingdom to possess, there the brief and 
lomely language, which comes from the depth of a pure heart, 
nay touch the proper chords more effectually than the highly 
ffganized development of a system of ideas. But the mode of 
hinking of the world iu which Buddha lived, moves in other 
»ths : for it all weal and woe, depend on knowledge and 
pnorance ; ignorance is the ultimate root of all evil, and the 
ole power, which can strike at the root of this evil, is 
3iowledge. Deliverance is, therefore, above all, knowledge ;* 
nd the preaching of deliverance can be nothing less or more 
ban the exposition of this knowledge, which means the 
OLfolding of a series of abstract notions and abstract 
ropositions. 

* Tliis mode of viewing things is not capable of a more aigni^cant and 
t the same time ntiive eKprcasioa than that wliich it has found in the 
larrative of tlie Siaghaleae Clinrch records of the first conversation of 
llahinda, the converter of Cojlon, with tie king DevSnampiya Tissa 
KTC. 250 B.C.). The Thera (elder) proceeds to a. formal examioation of 
he king in logie, "to find ont: does the king possess a clear under- 
tanding?" There is a mango tree near. The Thera asks: "What ia 
his tree called, O great kingP" "It is called mango, sire." "Are 
llere. O great king, beside this mango tree yet ijther mango trees or 
re there not?" "There are, sire, many other mango trees." "Are 
liere, O great king, beside this mango tree and those mango trees still 
ther trees ? " " There are, sire ; bat they are not mango trees." " Are 
iere beside those other mango trees and non-mango trees yet another 
reeY" "Yes, sire, tiis mango tree here." "Well done, great king, 
ion art clever." The Thera proceeds to apply ajiother test which tko 

12* 



180 s BUDDHA'S METHOD OF TEACHING. 

If, therefore, we do not wish, out of deference to a universal 
feeling of probability, which has based its standard on a 
ground other than Indian, to destroy the singularity and 
continuity of Indian developments, we must be on our guard 
against making a fanciful picture of Buddha, as if he were one 
of those aboriginal natures living only amid the concrete and 
tangible, to whom the spirit is everything, the letter nothing. 
His thought drew its nourishment from the long course of 
metaphysical speculation which preceded him ; he shares the 
delight in the metaphysical which is inherent in the Indian 
blood, the taste for abstraction, classification, and construction, 
and viewing him from this aspect, we should compare him not 
so much to the founder of Christianity, as to its theological 
champions, something such as Origen was. Thus we cannot 
refuse credence to the tradition which, in however many forms 
it makes Buddha speak, yet represents the particular weight 
of his teaching as lying in great lectures, beside which dialogue 
and parable, fable and sententious sayings, appear to be some- 
thing merely adventitious or marginal. 

The Yedic literature gives us a picture of the forensic style 
of dogmatic teaching and debate, which had established itself 
long before Buddha's time in the Brahmanical schools and on 
the sacrificial ground. The word which is to convey holy 
things, needs a fitting garb : the setting of spiritual discourse 
bears a solemn, sacred character, the stateliness of which soon 
changes to ponderous gravity. The personal bearing of the 

king stands as successftdly. " Beside thy relatives and the non-relatives, 
is there any other man, O great king ? " " Myself,, sire." "Well done, 
great king, a man is neither relative nor non-relative to himself." " There- 
upon the Elder said," the narrative proceeds, " that the king is clever and 
that he will be able to understand the doctrine, and he propounded to him 
the parable of the elephant's foot." — Buddhaghosai in the Yinaya JPitaka^ 
vol. iii, p. 324. 



BIERATW TYFE. 

Speaker also is not a matter of indifference: a strict ceremonial 
r-egnlatea his appearance and bis movemenfcH. Thus men were 
"Svont to think in Brahman circles long before Buddha's time, 
"fclius they Were wont to think in the Buddhist Church at the 
tiime in which our texts were compiled. Are we to suppose 
^Lat Buddha and tho circles around him, Etandiog in the 
zuiddle between thia epoch and that, felt differently from 
. "both. ? However widely form, tone, and morement in the 
ddactlc lectures, which we find in the sacred texts, may differ 
from what appears to us the natural and necessary manner 
«if living, spoken language, anyone wlio knows how to apply 
cliEFerent standards to things differing in their conditions, will 
find it not impossible to beliere thnb tho solemnly earnest style 
of address of Buddha was much more nearly allied to the type 
of the addresses preserved to us by tradition, than to that 
■which our feeling of the natural and the probable might be 
^tempted to substitute for it. 

The periods of these addresses in their motionless and rigid 
;, uniformity, on which no lights and shadows fall, are an accurate 
picture of the world as it presented itself to the eye of that 
monastic fraternity, the grim world of origination and decease, 
which goes on like clockwork in an ever uniform course, and 
behind which rests the still deep of the Nirv&na. In the words 
of thia ministry, there is heard no sound of working within, 
3 of yearning, nothing which — passing from person to 
person with the power which the utterance of a superior raaa 
possesses, and with all the relentlessness which is inseparable 
from that power — may fasten on the hearers. No impassioned 
entreating of men to come to the faith, no bitterness for the 
unbelieving who remains afar off. In these addresses, one 
word, one sentence, lies beside another in stony atillnesa, 
whether it expresses the most trivial thing op tho moat 



182 BUDDHA'S METHOD OF TEAOHING. 

important. As worlds of gods and worlds of men are, for the 
Buddhist consciousness, ruled by everlasting necessity, so 
also are the worlds of ideas and of verities : for these, too, 
there is one, and only one, necessary form of knowledge 
and expression, and the thinker does not make this form but 
he adopts what is ready to hand — as Buddha speaks, so 
countless Buddhas in countless ages of the world have spoken 
and will speak. Therefore, everything which resembles a free 
or arbitrary dealing of the mind with the material, must be 
absent from the diction of this ministration of salvation; 
every idea, every thought, has the same right to be heard 
in full and uncurtailed at the place which belongs to it, and 
thus those endless repetitions accumulate which Buddha^s 
disciples were never tired of listening to anew, and always 
honouring afresh as the necessary garb of holy thought, as 
something which should be so and not otherwise. One might 
often fancy that at Buddha's time the human mind had not 
yet discovered the magic word which joins together the 
lengths of disconnected co-ordinates into one compact whole, 
the insignificant but powerful word "and/' Hear how one 
of the most renowned discourses expresses the thought that 
all man's senses and the world, which they apprehend, are 
attacked and wasted by the sorrow-bringing powers of the 
earthly and the impermanent as by a flaming fire.* 

Then said the Exalted One to the disciples : *^ Everything, 
O disciples, is in flames. And what Everything, O disciples, 
is in flames ? The eye, O disciples, is in flames, the visible 
is in flames, the knowledge of the visible is in flames, the 
contact with the visible is in flames, the feeling which arises 
from contact with the visible, be it pleasure, be it pain, be 
it neither pleasure nor pain, this also is in flames. By what 

• " Mah&vagga," i, 21. 



msCOVRSE OiY TEE COKFLAORATIOS OF TRE SEMES. 183 

re is it kindled ? By tho fire of desire, by the fire of liate, 

"by tie fire of fascination, it is kindled; by birtli, old age, 

^eatb, pain, lamentation, sorrow, grief, despair, it is kindled : 

ibuB I say. The ear 13 in flames, the audible is in flames, the 

fciowledge of the audible'is in flames, the contact with the 

xindible is in flames, the feeling which arises from contact 

Tvith tho audible, be it pleasure, be it pain, be it neither 

"pleasure nor pain, this also is in flames. By what fire is 

it kindled ? By the fire of desire, by the fire of hate, by 

the fire of fascination, it is kindled j by birth, old age, death, 

pain, lamentation, son'ow, grief, despair, it is kindled : thna 

I say. The sense of smell is in flames — and then follows for 

the third time the same series of propositions; — the tongne 

is in flames ; the body is in flames ; the mind ia in flames ; — 

each time tho same detail follows unabridged." Then the 

address goes on ; — 

"Knowing this, disciples, a wise, noble hearer of the 
word becomes wearied of the eye, he becomes weariod of 
tho visible, he becomes wearied of the knowledge of the 
visible, he becomes wearied of contact with the visible, he 
becomes wearied of the feeling which arises from contact 
with the visible, be it pleasure, be it pain, be it neither 
pleasure nor pain. He becomes wearied of the ear, — and 
iben follows one after the other the whole series of ideas 
as above." The address concludes : — 

" While he becomes wearied thereof, he becomes free from 
desire ; free from desire he becomes delivered ; in the delivered 
'arises the knowledge: I am dehvered; re-birth is at an end, 
perfected is holiness, duty done ; there is no more returning 
to this world ; he knows this." 

The address on tho flames of the conflagration of the senses 
pnrports to have been delivered by Buddha to the thousand 



184 BUDDHA'S METHOD OF TEAOHJNG. 

hermits of Uruveitt,* when they had already confessed the 
faith and received initiation, when in them, as the texts are 
wont to express it, " the pure and moteless eye of the truth 
was awakened : whatever is subject to the law of origination, 
every such thing is also subject to the law of decease/' But if 
the object be to bring the doctrine of suffering and of deliver- 
ance near to a novice, who is still far from the revelation of 
Buddha, the variations of the sacred writings assume a some- 
what different form. As a specimen of their type, place may 
here be given to the narrative of the village-fathers of the 
eighty thousand villages of the Magadha kingdom, who were 
assembled round the king of Magadha, and at the end of their 
deliberations were sent by him to Buddha.f 

" But when the king of Magadha, Seniya Bimbis&ra, had 
instructed the eighty thousand village elders in the laws of 
the visible world, he dismissed them and said : Friends, ye 
have now been instructed by me in the rules of the visible 
universe ; go now and approach him, the Exalted One ; he, 
the Exalted One, will instruct you in the things of the here- 
after/' Then the eighty thousand village elders went to 
the mountain Gijjhakuta (vulture peak). At that time the 
venerable S^gata was on duty with the Exalted One. The 
eighty thousand village elders went on to where the venerable 
S^lgata was ; when they had come up to him, they said to 
the venerable Sagata: *^Here come eighty thousand village 
elders, sire, to see the Exalted One. Come, sire, vouchsafe 
to us to see the Exalted One.'' ^^ Tarry here a while, my 
friends, that I may announce you to the Exalted One." Then 
vanished the venerable Sagata from the steps (at the entrance 
to the monastery) in the presence of the eighty thousand 
village elders, and before their eyes rose up in the presence of 
* Vide antea, p. 132. t " MaMvagga/* v, 1. 



TTFE OF HISTORIES OF CONVERSlOm. 



185 



■fclie Exalted One and spoko to the Exalted One : " The eighty 
fclaoasand village elders are come hither, sire, to see the Exalted 
e. Sire, let the Exalted One bo pleased to do what he now 
tlaiaks right for the occasion." " Then place a seat for me, 
Sftgata, in the shadow of the monastery," "Yes, sire," replied 
bio venerable Sdgata to the Exalted One, took a stool, vanished 
"before the face of the Exalted One, came up again before the 
face of the eighty thousand village elders' and before their 
eyes on the steps, and prepared a seat in the shadow of the 
monastery. Then the Exalted One went out of the monastery 
^nd took a seat on the sfcool which had been set for him in the 
shadow of the monastery. Then the eighty thousand village 
«!ders approached to where the Exalted One was ; when they 
lad come up to him they bowed themselfea before the Exalted 
One and sat down near him. But the eighty thousand village 
elders directed their thoughts to the venerable Sflgata alone, 
and therefore not to the Exalted One. Then the Exalted One 
knew in his mind the thoughts of the eighty thousand village 
elders, and said to the venerable SUgata : *' Come, S&gata, show 
yet greater marvels of superhuman ability." "Yes, sire," the 
venerable SSgata answered the Exalted One, rose up into the 
air, and walked on high in the atmosphere, stood, descended, 
sat down, emitted smoke and flames, and vanished. When 
the venerable SiLgata had exltibited in various ways, on high 
in the atmosphere, such marvels of superhuman powerj he 
lowed his head at the feet of the Exalted One, and said to the 
Exalted One : " My master, sire, is the Exalted One ; I am his 
disciple ; my master, sire, is the Exalted One ; I am hia 
' disciple." Thereupon thought the eighty thousand village 
elders: "truly this is glorious, truly it is wonderful: if the 
disciple is so exceedingly mighty and exceedingly powerful, 
yrhat will the Master be !" and they directed their thoughts to 



186 BUDDHA'S METHOD OF TEACHINO. 

the Exalted One alone and not to the venerable S&gata. Then 
the Exalted One knew in his mind the thoughts of the eighty 
thousand village elders, and preached to them the word 
according to the law, as it is : the discourse on giving, th 
discourse on uprightness, the discourse on the heavens, the 
corruption, vanity, impurity of desires, the glory of being free 
from desire. When now the E;!calted One perceived that their 
thoughts were prepared, susceptible, free from obstructions, 
elevated, and directed towards him, he preached to them what 
is pre-eminently the teaching of the Buddhas, suffering, th 
origin of suffering, the removal of suffering, the way to the- 
removal of suffering. As a clean garment, from which all- 
impurity is removed, wholly absorbs within itself the dye, so 
opened in these eighty thousand village elders, as they sat there, 
the pure moteless eye of the truth : whatever is subject to the 
law of origination, all such is subject to the law of decease. 
And discerning the doctrine, having pierced through to the 
doctrine, knowing the doctrine, sinking themselves in the 
doctrine, overcoming doubt, free from vacillation, having 
penetrated to knowledge, needing nothing else in their faith 
in the Master's doctrine, they spoke to the Exalted One thus : 
" Excellent, sire, excellent, sire ; as a man, O sire, straightens 
that which is bowed down, or uncovers the hidden, or shows the 
way to one who has gone astray, or shows a light in the dark- 
ness, so that he who has eyes may be able to see the forms of 
things, even so has the Exalted One proclaimed the doctrine 
in manifold discourses. We, sire, take our refuge with the 
Exalted One, ajid with the Doctrine and with the Order 
of his disciples : may the Exalted One receive us as his lay 
disciples, for from this day henceforth we have taken our 
refuge with him as long as our life endures.*' 

This narrative of the visit of the elders to Buddha may be 



LirPE OP HIBTOEIES OF CONVERSIONB. 



187 



bsken aB a typical one, tie features of which reappear in the 
.acred texts on all similar occasions, Buddha does not speak 
it starting of the things which constitute the scope and kernel 
>f his teaching, but he begins by admonishing to the practice 
c}£ virtues in worldly vocations, to generosity, to rectitude iu 
^very earthly occupation : he speaks of the heavens with their 
TBwarda which await him who has led a life of earnest purpose 
liere below. And as soon as he knows that his hearers are 
fitted to receive something deeper, he proceeds to speak to 
them of that which, as the tests say, "is pre-eminently the 
revelation of the Buddhjw," the doctrines of suffering and 
deliverance. These are always the same subjects of Buddha's 
preaching, and we over and over again meet the same expres- 
sions of joy and gratitude on the part of the converted, then 
finally the formula with which they take their refuge as lay 
brothers or lay sisters in the ancient trinity of the Buddhist 
Church, the Buddha, the Doctrine, and the Order. Here and 
there there is inserted a story of some wonder which rises in 
no way above the level of quaint and tedious miracle. All 
these narratives are absolutely wanting in individuality ; we 
seek in vain to gather something therefrom as to how Buddha 
penetrated and operated on the private, persona! life of the 
individual among his disciples. Whenever we open our 
gospels, we find portrayed the most delicate and deepest 
traces of the work of Jesus, which, providing, consoling, 
healing, and bnilding up, passes from man to man : very 
different from the picture which the Buddhist Church has 
preserved to us of its master's work ; the living human, the 
personal hides itself behind the system, the formula; no one 
to seek out and to console the suffering and the sorrowing ; it 
is only the sorrow of the whole universe of which we again and 
again heai'. 



188 BUDDHA'8 METHOD OF TEACHIKG. 

Here and there the outward garb of such narratives 
somewhat altered; instead of a sermon we find a dialogue; 
Buddha questions or is questioned. In the task of producing 
a life-like picture of such conversations as took place in 
Buddha's time, or in their own circles, the compilers of our 
sacred texts, who had not many things to go upon, but had 
nothing less than a dramatic vein, have certainly in their mode 
of treatment failed most signally. Those who converse with 
Buddha are good for nothing else but simply to say ^*yes,'' 
and to be eventually converted, if they have not yet been 
converted.* But any one who does not suflfer himself to be 

* An amusing illustration of the manner in which the sacred texts deal 
with the claims of character of the speakers and the other requirements 
of description by dramatic dialogue, is to be found in the history of 
Buddha's conversation with AnA.thapihdika's daughter-in-law (in the 
'' Anguttara-Nikaya/' Sattakanipata). Buddha comes in his begging 
excursion to the house of his wealthiest and most liberal admirer, the great 
wholesale merchant Anathapindika. He hears loud conversation and 
wrangling, and asks : " Why are the people screaming and crying in thy 
house ? One would think fishermen had been robbed of their fish." And 
AnS,thapindika pours out his grief to Buddha : a daughter-in-law of a 
rich family, has come into his house, who will not listen to her husband 
and her parents-in-law, and declines to show due reverence to Buddha. 
Buddha says to her : " Come, Suj^ta." She answers : " Yes, sire," and 
comes to Buddha. He says to her : " There are seven kinds of wives 
which a man may have, Sujata. What seven are they P One resembles 
a murderess, another a robber, another a mistress, another a mother, 
£inother a sister, another a friend, another a servant. These Sujata, are 
the seven kinds of wives which a man may have. Which kind art thou?" 
And Sujata has forgotten all obstinacy and pride, and says deferentially : 
*' Sire, I do not understand the full meaning of that which the Exalted 
One has stated in brief; therefore, sire, may the Exalted One so expound 
to me his doctrine, that I may be able to understand the full meaning of 
that which the Exalted One has stated briefly." " Hearken, then, Sujat4, 
and take it well to heart : I shall state it to thee." — " Yes, sire," said 
Sujata. And Buddha describes to her then the seven kinds of women, 
from the worst who goes after other men, despises her husband, and tries 



DIALOGUES. 189 

^^terred by this want of living concrete reality from following 

^P tie logical train of these conversations, will here find more 

*'^^xi one trace, though dim and unskilful, of the same maieutic 

^^ethod of dialectic, which history has properly denominated 

^^>cratic, after the name of the man who has practised it 

^^comparably more perfectly, among a more brilliantly-gifted 

l^eople — the same sifting of spiritual truths by argument from 

Analogies which daily life supplies, the same rudiments of the 

inductive method. 

Thus is related to us the conversation of Buddha with Sona,* 
s young man, who had imposed on himself an excess of ascetic 
observances, and now, when he becomes aware of the fruit- 
lessness of his practice, is on the point of turning to the 
opposite extreme, and reverting to a life of enjoyment. 
Buddha says to this disciple: *^How is it, Sona, were you 
able to play the lute before you left home V — " Yes, sire/' — 
"What do you think theu, Sona, if the strings of your lute 
are too tightly strung, will the lute give out the proper tone 
and be fit to play?'' — "It will not, sire." — " And what do you 
think, Sona, if the strings of your lute be strung too slack ; 
will the lute then give out the proper tone and be fit to play?" 
— " It will not, sire." — " But how, Sona, if the strings of your 
lute be not strung too tight or too slack, if they have the 
proper degree of tension, will the lute then give out the 
proper sound and be fit to play ? " — " Yes, sire." — " In the 
same way, Sona, energy too much strained tends to excessive 

to take his life, up to the best who, like a servant, is always submissive to 
her husband's will, and bears without a murmur all lie says and does. 
" These, Suj^ta, are the seven kinds of wives which a man may have. 
What kind among these art thou ? " — " From this day forward, sire, may 
the Exalted One esteem me one who is to her husband a wife who 
resembles a servant." 
* " Mah^vagga," v, 1-15, seq. 



190 BVDDEA'B METHOD OF TEAOHINO. 

zeal, and energy too mucH relaxed tends to apathy. Theref ore^^ 
Sona, cultivate in yourself the mean of energy, and press on — ^ 
to the mean in your mental powers, and place this before you 
as your aim/' 

Another conversation,* carried on between Buddha and a 
Brahman, deals with the relation between the four castes and 
the claim to service and obedience which the Brahmans advance 
against all other castes, and each higher among other castes 
advances against the lower castes. Buddha couches his 
criticism in the form of a dialogue, with question and answer. 
*^ If anyone were to ask a Kshatriya (noble) as follows : ^ To 
whom wouldst thou render service : to him with whom, if thou 
doest him service, thou wilt fare worse for thy service, not better; 
or to him with whom, if thou doest him service, thou wilt fare 
better for thy service, not worse?' The Kshatriya would, if he 
answers properly, answer thus : ^ Him with whom, if I did him 
service, I should fare worse for my service, not better, him 
would I not serve ; but him with whom, if I did him service, 
I should fare better for my service, not worse, to him would 
I render service.' " And then the induction goes on in its 
stiff consecutive course : " If anyone were to ask a Brahman 
as follows — if anyone were to ask a Vai5ya as follows — ^if 
auyone were to ask a (Judra as follows." The answer is 
naturally every time the same, and the exposition eventually 
yields this result : " Where by the service which anyone 
renders to another, his faith increases, his virtue increases, 
his understanding increases, his knowledge increases, there, 
I say, it is that he should render him service." 

Here and there, as in our gospels, parables alternate with 
doctrine and admonition : " I shall show you a parable," Buddha 
says, " by a parable many a wise man perceives the meaning of 

* PhasukS,ri Suttanta (Majjhima NikSya). 




PARABLES. 191 

'Oat ia being said," The operations of man as well as the life 
* nature are the fields of observation, with which these similes 
**^ spiritaal life and effort, for deliverance, and the company 
'** tbe delivered, deal. Buddha'n preaching of deliverance 
Compared to the work of the physician, who draws the 
Poisoned arrow from a wound, and overcomes the power of the 
>ison with remedial herbs. The company of disciples, the 
feathering of noble spirite, in whom all worldly differences 
'^ high and low cease, resembles the sea with its wonders, in 
le depths of which He pearls and crystals, in which gigantic 
ifttures have free play, into which the rivers flow, and lose 
their names, and mate up the ocean, so many of them there 
are. As the lotus flower raises its head out of the water, 
*inaffected by the water, so the Buddhaa born in the world, rise 
»bove the world, unaffected by the impurity of the world. As 
"the peasant ploughs his fields and sows the seed and irrigates, 
but has not the power to say : the grain shall swell to-day, 
to morrow it shall germinate, next day it shall ripen, but 
must wait till the proper time comes and brings "growth 
and ripeness of his corn, so also it ia with the disciple who 
seeks deliverance : he must i-egulato his course according to 
strict discipline, practise rebgious meditation, study diligently 
the doctrine of salvation, but he has not the power to say : 
to-day or to-morrow shall my spirit be delivered from every 
impure habit, but ho must wait until his time comes for 
ddiverance to be voucbsafcd to bim. For the tempter who 
tries to shut up against man tbo path of salvation and to lure 
hjm to false paths, and the deliverer, who leads him back 
(o the right path, this simile is employed:* "As when, 
disciples, in the forest, on a mountain slope, there lies a great 
tract of low land and water, where a great herd of deer lives, 
• DvedhiviUkka Sutta {Majjh. S.). 



192 



BUDDHA'S METHOD OF TEACHISQ. 



and there comes a man, who devises hurt, distresB and danger 
for the doer J who covers over and shots up the path whicli is 
safcj gooci, and pleasant to take, and opens up a false path, a 
Bwampy path, a marshy ti-acli. Thenceforward, disciples, to 
great herd of deer incurs hurt and danger and diminislies. 
But now, disciplea, if a man comes, who devises prosperity, 
welfare, and safety for this great herd of deer : who clears and 
opens up the path which is safe, good and pleasant to take, 
and does away with the false path, and abolishes the swampy 
path, the marshy track. Thenceforth, disciples, will thfr 
great herd of deer thrive, grow, and increase, I have spoken, 
to you, disciples, in a parahle, to make known my meaning. 
Bnt the meaning is this. The great lowland and the water, 
disciples, are pleasures. The groat herds of deer, disciples, 
are living men. The man, disciples, who devises linrt, 
distress, and ruin, is M^ra, the Evil One. The false path, 
disciples, is the eight-fold false path, to wit : false faith, false 
resolve, false speech, false action, false living, false eSbrti 
false thought, false self -concentration. The swampy way, 
disciples, is pleasure and desire. The swampy track is igno- 
rance. The man, disciples, who devises prosperity, welfarti 
salvation, is the Perfect One, the holy, supreme Buddha. Tke 
safe, good way, disciples, in which it is well to walk, is tii» 
holy eight-fold path, to wit : right faith, right resolve, rigli* 
speech, right action, right living, right effort, right thoaglit* 
right self-concentration. Thus, disciples, has the safe, good 
path, in which it is well to walk, been opened np by me; tbe 
false path has been done away, the swampy path, the swaOpJ 
track has been abolished. Everything, disciples, that * 
master, who seeks the salvation of his disciples, who pit»** 
tiem, must do out of pity for them, that have I done for yoO- 
Such similes ran through the discourse on sorroi 



FABLEB AND ROMANCES. 



19!t 



BliTGraiice. Throngli the measured, formality of the monastic 

arcli- diction, we constantly feel the breath of intelligent 
apathy with life and nature, that genuine human desire to 
bserve this motley world, and see whether it cannot by its 
gnrative language throw some Kght on the spirit world and 

I secrets. 

Prom similes to fablo and romance is not a long way ; the 
taddhist mendicant monks were sufficieufcly Indian to have an 
idant share of the old Indian delight in romance. Some- 
imea tho sacred writings make Buddha tell his disciples a 
ible of animals, sometimes a history of strange occurrences, 
nd all kinds of human actions, thoughtful or amusing : "There 
once two wise brothers," or " there was once at Benares 

king, called Brahmadatta," the history of the banished king 
jong-grief, and his sagacious son Long-life, or the fable, how 

le partridge, the ape, and the elephant have learned to live 

igether in virtue and harmony ; at the end of every history 
ftme, as is fitting, a moral.* 
But the most beautiful embellishments of Buddha's preaching 

e those poetical sentences in which all the most delicate 
ewers of light and warmth, which dwell within the Buddhist 
Oind, are concentrated as it were in a focus. Here we need 
iot by any means see merely a poetic embeUishment which tbo 
Jhnrch has attributed to its master's teaching ; sentences of 
bis kind, short improvisations, to which the pKant nature of 

• Some of these stories — hnrdly all — are bo applied that their leading 
iro is identified with Bnddba in one of his previous esBtences, and the 
ther personages who appear with persons in Buddha's society or in the 
Ircles of his opponents. Later on new stories, hut always with the 
le points, were invented by the hundred, or even old legendary matter 
been wrought up in majorem Buddhie gloriam ; these make up a parti- 
ir book of tho sacred writings, the collection of the Jataka {storica of 
lier births), cf „ however, also my note to Suttavibhanga, Pucittiya, 2, 1. 

13 



191 



BUDDBA'S METHOD C 



the ^loka-metre readily adapted itself, may very well IsTe 
been actually a feature of Baddha'a mode of speech, aad oi 
that specially-gifted among hia disciples,* These apothegma 
are 80 unlike the dry numbness of the prose lectures, that we 
may be tempted to ask whether they were really the Bsme 
spirits which have composed the one and the other. We feel 
bow that prose confined and bound up those who spoke in it; 
but when the domain of prose ceases, wbere mon are expressing 
not dry, subtle systems of ideas, but the simple emotions, 
the sorrows and hopes of their own hearts, life is roused and 
the blood of life, poetry. Thoughtful feeling, clad in th^ 
grand and rich attire of Indian metaphor, looks out upon n», 
and the ^lokas with their gently measured rhythms, so pecu- 
liarly combining uniformity and diversity, flow up and doirn 
like the surging billows of the sea, on which the clear sky is 
reflected amid variegated, fragrant lotus flowers. The sonl of 
this poesy, too, is nothing else hut what the soul of the Buddhist 
faith itself is, tho one thought, which rings out in sablimft 
monotony from all these apothegms : Unhappy, impermanent*, 
happy he who has the eternal. From this thought there fK- 
vades the proverbial wisdom of the Buddhist, that tone of deep, 
happy repose, of which that proi;id sentence says that the gods 
themselves envy it, that repose which looks down npoa tiio 
struggling world, stoops to the most distressed and quietly 
extends to him the picture of absolute peace. For the elucidft- 

• Tradition allota specially the task of improviaatioa (paribMni) 
among Buddha'a disciplea to Vangisa (" Dtp,," iv, 4), who is the hero of one 
particular section in the holy texts, the Van^sathera-Saijiyutta, TheK 
it is often said: this and that thought " dawned on. Yangisa" (patibh&ti), 
and then he utters a verse in which, he gives ospresaion to the collatent 
circuTOBtonoeB, praises Buddha, and so on. He then says of these venei, 
they are not prepared beforehand (pubhe parivitakkitA) bat "tier 
suddenly dawned on me " (thSnaso niaip patibhanti). 



POETICAL 8ENIEN0E8. 195 

E Baddhism nothing better could happen than that^ at the 
)ntset of Buddhist studies^ there should be presented to 
budent by an auspicious hand the Dhammapada^'i' that 
beautiful and richest of collections of proverbs, to which 
re who is determined to come to know Buddhism must 
ind over again return, and to which we shall often have 
ide in our sketch of the Buddhist teaching. 

ere a few sayings of the Dhammapada (60, 153 seq. 383, 82) may 
fitting place ; I have avoided attempting to reproduce tbje metrical 

mg is the night to him who keeps watch, long is the road to the 
, long is the wandering path of re-births for the foolish, who know 
3 word of truth." 
path of many re-births have I vainly traversed, seeking the builder 

house (of corporeity) ; full of suflfering is birth (recurring) over 
er again. "Now have I seen thee, O builder of the house ; thou 
lot again build the house. Thy rafters are all broken, the battle- 
of the house are demolished. The soul, having escaped change- 
, has attained the end of desire.*' 
em the current with might, banish from thee all desire, O Brahman ; 

hast sighted the end of the changeable, thou art a knower of the 
ted, O Brahman." , 

rest like that of the deep sea, calm and clear, the wise find« who 
le truth." 



13* 



CHAPTER Y. 



Buddha's Death. 

Buddha is said to have reached the age of eighty yearr^^ ; 
forty-four years of this term belong to his public career, '^^o 
what his followers term his Buddhahood. The year of la- is 
death is one of the most firmly fixed dates in ancient Indi^t*^ 
history; calculations, by which the sum of possible error ^^-^ 
confined within tolerably narrow limits, give as a result, tb^*-* 
he died not long before or not long after 480 B.C. 

Begarding the last months of his life and his last gr^^^^ 
journey from Bftjagaha to Kusinftrft, the place of his death, "V*^0 
possess a detailed account in a Sdtra of the sacred P&li Canoxi — * 
The external features of this narrative bear for the most pai^*^ 
though perhaps not in every particular,t the stamp of trat**" 
worthy tradition; in the utterances and addresses of Buddh^i 
most of which convey a clear or covert intimation of Ix^s 
approaching end, fancy has undoubtedly allowed itself fre^^r 
range. A portion at any rate of the narrative may here b^ 

* The " Mah&parinibbfina Sutta," by which the northern BuddH** 
versions of this narrative are rendered saperflaous. 

t It especially excites distrust, to find that the occnxrences ^^ 
P&taliputta and the meeting with Ambapllli ("Ghilders* Ed./' p. lOieqJ 
are narrated at another place in quite a diiforont connection (" Mah&vaggBy" 
vi, 28 seq.). 



BUDDHA'S BEATS. 

eproduced, partly iu resume, and partly in a verbal trans- 
Ettion. 

Trom Rajagaha, the cliief town in the Magadha territory) 
Biaddlia goes northward. He croaeea the Ganges at the place 
■where the new capital, Pataliputta [TlaXt^odpa), is then being 
tuilt, the chief city of India in the following centuries. Buddha 
foretells the coming greatness of this town. Then he journeys 
on to the opulent and brilliant free-town VesS,li. Near Vesali, in 
tiie village of Belnva, he dismissed the disciples who were with 
Hm, to pass in solitary retirement the three months at the 
oaiEp period of the year, the last rainy season of his life. At 
Belnva he was attacked by a severe illness; violent pains 
seized him, he was near dying. He then bethought him of his 
disciples. " It becomes me not to enter into Nirvana, without 
having addressed those who cared for me, without speaking to 
tae oommnuity of my followers. I shall conquer this illness 
^7 ay power, and hold life fast within me." Then the Exalted 
Oac subdued the sickness by his power and held the life fast 
"ithin him. And the illness of the Exalted One vanished. 
And the Exalted One recovered from his sickness and soon after, 
■wten ho had recovered from his sickness, he went out of the 
loose and sat down in the shade of the house, on the seat which 
Was prepared for him. Thereupon the venerable Ananda went 
to the Exalted One : when he was near him and had made hia 
salutations to the Exalted One, he sat down beside him; 
Bittiag by his side, the worthy Ananda spako to the Exalted 
One thus : " Sire, I see that tho Exalted One ia well ; I see, 
(ire, that the Exalted One ia better. All nerve had left me, 
Bire ; I was faint ; my senses failed mo because of the sickness 
of the Exalted One. But still I had one consolation, sire : the 
lExulted One will not enter Nirvana, until he has declared his 
purpose concerning the body of his followers," " What need 




198 BUDDHA'S DEATK 

haih tlie body of my followers of me now, Ananfia f I hai 
declared the Doctrine, Ananda, and I have made no distincti< 
between within and withont ; the Perfect One has not, Ananda-. 
been a forgetful teacber of the Doctrine. He, Ananda, 
says : I will role over the Church, or let the Church be sabjc 
to me, he, O Ananda, might declare his will in the Chunr i 
The Perfect One, however, O Ananda, does not say : I will 
over the Church, or let the Church be subject to me. 
shall the Perfect One declare, Ananda, to be his pnrpc 
regarding the Church ? I am now firaQ, Ananda, I am 




I am an old man, who has finished his pilgrimage and nml —a 
old age ; eighty years old am L . • . • Be ye to yoursehp""^ 
Ananda, your own light, your own refuge ; seek no other rdh^fe. 
Let the truth be your light and your refuge, seek no otlter 

refuge whosoever now, Ananda, or after my 

departure shall be'his own light, his own refuge, and shall seet^ 
no other refuge, whosoever taketh the truth as his light an£> 
his refuge and shall seek no other refoge, such will henoef orth 
Ananda, be my true disciples, who walk in the right path.'' 

Buddha now goes on to Yes&li and makes his usual b^giag 
excursion through the town. Here M&ra comes to him an/ 
calls on him to enter at once into Nirv&na. Buddha repels hii 
saying, ''give thyself no trouble on that score, thou evil or 
After a short time the Nirv&na of the Perfect One will 
accomplished ; three months hence will the Perfect One ei 
Nirv&na/' And Buddha dismisses the volition which attta^ 
life to himself: earthquakes and thunderings accompan 
resolutioq to enter into Xirv&na. 

In the evening Buddha sends for all the monks, wl 
tanying in the neighbourhood of Tesali, and he seats ) 
in the midst of them and he addresses them : — 

Learn ye then fully, O my disciples, that knowledg 



«c 



BUDDKA'S DEATH. 

I bave attained and have declared unto you, and walk ye in it^ 
practice and increase, in order that this path of holinesa may 
last and long endure, for the blessing of many people, for tho 
joy of many people, to the relief of the world, to the welfare, 
the blessing, the joy of gods and men. And what, disciples, 
is the knowledge which I have attained and have declared unto 
you, which you are to learn fully, walk in it, practice and 
increase, in order that this path of holiness may last and long 
endure, for the blessing of many people, for the joy of many 
people, to the relief of the world, to the welfare, the blessing, 
the joy of gods and men ? It is the four-fold vigilance, the 
four-fold right effort, the four-fold holy strength, the five 
Organs, the five powers, the seven members of knowledge, the 
Sacred eight-fold path. This, disciples, is the knowledge 
Which I have attained, and have declared unto you," etc. 

And tho Exalted Onespake further to the monks : " Hearken, 

ye monks, I say unto yon : all earthly things are transitory ; 

Btrivo on without ceasing. In a short time the Perfect One 

"Will attain Nirvana ; three months hence will the Perfect One 
inter Nirvftna." 
Thus spake the Exalted One: when the Perfect One had 

"tiias said, the Master further spake as follows : — 

" My existence is ripening to its cloae, the end of mj life is near. 
I go hence, je remain behind ; the place of refuge is ready fur me. 
Be watchiiil without intermisaion, walk evennore in holiness ; 
Aye resolute and aye prepared keep ye, O disciples, your minds. 
He who eTcrmoTO walks without stumbling, true to tlic word of truth, 
Struggles into freedom from birth and death, presses through to the 
end of all sufTeiing." 



On the following day Buddha once more makes a begging 
excursion through Vesfilt, then looks back upon the town for 
the last time and sets out with a large concourse of disciples 




202 BUDDHA'S DEATH, 

Ananda went in to the Master^ bowed himself before him^ 
sat down beside him. Bat Baddha said to him : '^ Not 
Ananda^ weep not^ sorrow not. Ha^e I not ere this said 
thee^ Ananda, that from all that man loves and from all i 
man enjoys^ from that mnst man partj most give it np^ a 
tear himself from it. How can it be^ Ananda^ that that whii 
is born^ grows^ is made^ which is subject to decay^ should 
pass away ? That cannot be. But thou^ Ananda^ hast lo 
honoured the Perfect One^ in love and kindness^ with 
ness^ loyally and unwearyingly, in thought^ word and de^^ 
Thou hast done well^ Ananda ; only strive on^ soon wilt th 
bo free from impurities.'' 

When night came on, the Mallas, the nobles of Kusinftair-^^, 
went out in streams to the s&l grove with their wives 
children, to pay their respects for the last time to the 
Master. Subhadda, a monk of another sect, who had desiir^^^^J 
to speak with Buddha, turned to him as the last of t^i-*® 
converts who have seen the Master in the flesh. 

Buddha, shortly before his departure, said to Ananda : *^ — ** 
may be, Ananda, that ye shall say : the Word has lost 
master, we have no master more. Ye must not think th 
Ananda. The law, Ananda, and the ordinance, which I hefc"^"^® 
taught and preached unto ye, these are your master when I 
gone hence.'' 

And to his disciples he said : '' Hearken, O disciples^ 
charge ye : everything that cometh into being passeth awa^; 
strive without ceasing." These were his last words. 

His spirit then rose from one state of ecstasy to another:^^^^^ 
up and down through all the stages of rapture, until he passec^^^ 
into NirvAua. The earth quaked and thunders rolled. At th^^ 
moment when Buddha entered Xirvlma, Brahma spake thes^^ 
words : — 



i 



BUDDHA'S DEATH. 



201 



At last Boddha arrives at Knsmara. There lay on tke bank 
of the river Hiranyavati (Chota Grandak) a grove of a&l trees, 
" Go, Anauda," says Buddhaj " and prepare a bed for me 
between two twin trees, with iny bead to the north. I am 
tired, Ananda; I shall lie down." 

It was not the season for s&l trees to bloomj but these two 
twin trees were covered with blossoms from crown to foot. 
Baddha laid himself down imder the blooming trees, like a 
lion taking hia rest, and blossoms fell down on him ; a shower 
of flowers fell from heaven; and heavenly melodioa sounded 
over head, in honour of the dying saint, 

" Then spake the Exalted One to the venerable Ananda : 
Although this is not the time for flowers, Ananda, yet are these 
two twin trees completely decked with blossoms, and flowers are 
falling, showering, streaming down on the body of the Perfect 
One, . . . heavenly melodies are sounding in the air, in 
honour of the Perfect One. But to the Perfect One belongeth 
another honour, another glory, another reward, another 
tomage, other reverence. Whosoever, Ananda, male disciple 
or female follower, iay-brother, or lay-sister, lives in the truth 
in mattors both great and small, and lives according to the 
ordinance and also walks in the truth in details, these bring to 
the Perfect One the highest honour, glory, praise, and credit. 
Therefore, Ananda, mnst ye practise, thinking : Let us live in 
tbe truth in matters great and small, and let us live according 
to the ordinance and walk in the truth also in details." 

But Ananda went into the house and wept, saying : "I am 
not yet free from impuritiea, I have not yet reached the goal, 
and my master, who takes pity on me, will soon enter into 
NirvSna," Then Buddha sent one of the disciples to him, 
saying : " Go, disciple, and say to Ananda in my name j the 
Master wishes to speak with thee, friend Anaqda." Thereupon 



PAET 11. 



THE DOCTEINES OF BUDDHISM. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Tenet of Suffering. 

'' At one time/' as we read,* " the Exalted One was staying 
at Kosambi in the SinsapS, grove. And the Exalted One took 
a few Sinsapa leaves in his hand and said to his disciples: 
'^ what think ye, my disciples, whether are more, these fe^ 
SinsapS, leaves, which I have gathered in my hand, or the 
other leaves yonder in the SinsapS, grove ? '' 

^' The few leaves, sire, which the Exalted One holds in bis 
hand are not many, but many more are those leaves yonder in 
the Siasapft grove." 

^^So also, my disciples, is that much more, which I have 
learned and have not told you, than that which I have told 
you. And, wherefore, my disciples, have I not told you that- 
Because, my disciples, it brings you no profit, it does not 
conduce to progress in holiness, because it does not lead to 
the turning from the earthly, to the subjection of all desire, 
to the cessation of the transitory, to peace, to knowledge, to 
illumiuation, to Nirv&na : therefore have I not declared it unto 

* In the " Saipyuttaka Nikaya," at the end of the work (vol. iii, fd. »i 
ofthePhayreMS.). 



^m sasoLASTic dialectic. 207 I 

^Hcorded in the sacrod texts, and, in many places, it is probably 
Ho1> too mncli to believe that the very words, in wbicli the 
^pcetic of the Sakj-a house couched his gospel of deliverance, 
Karve come down to ns as they fell from his lips. We find that I 
Bhrottghoat the vast complex of ancient Buddhist literature I 
fvliich has been collected, certain mottoes and formulas, the 
K'^cjjression of Buddhist convictions upon some of the weightiest 
'problems of religious thought, are expressed over and over 
*Soiii in a standard form adopted once for all. Why may not I 
■•"ese be words which have received their currency from the I 
**^tinder of Buddhism, which had been spoken by him hundreds 
**^d thousands of times throughout his long life, devoted to 
^■^achiiig ? 

The meaning which he conveyed by such words we can often J 
^^laiy approximately determine. Here, as in every case where ' 
•^Ijo word has a preponderant importance over the thought, 
"^frhere it does not smoothly fit the thought, but compresses 
*fc within its own straight form, the inquirer who desires to 
*^constrnct remote and foreign forma of thought, has not 
"tliat surest key which consecutive progression, the inherent 
*ieceBsity of the thought, can give him. Those hundred-fold 
*'epetitions, those permutations and combinations of every 
Icind, in which dogmatic technicalities meet us, but through 
"which a living current of dialectic movement does not flow, 
liardly render the meaning of those expressions more compre- 
lieiisible to U8. Moreover, we find the same technical term 

older BectB have tnmBinitted to Buddhiam ready made, it doea not seem 
improbable that the latter started at the very beginDing witL a very 
comprehcDsive and very definitely fonnolaled dogmatic apparatus. ] 
not impossible, bat not quite probable, that, if the Sutta texts be )^ven 
to tie public ia their fall extent, we may be able to go farther in 
proceaB of eliminating later elements than we ean go at present. 



208 THE TEHET OF SUFFERUiO. 

used often in distinctly different meanings, or we find tlie 
Bame thoaght expressed in different settings, which can be 
only partially harmonized with each other. The most seriom 
obstaclej however, which stands in the way of our compre- 
hending Buddhist dogmatics is the silence with wLkh 
ereiything is passed over which does not lead "to flie 
separation fi'om the earthly, to the subjection of all deaiw, 
to the cessation of the transitory, to quietude, knowledge, 
illuminatjon, to Nirv3.na." We remarked that an extenBive 
stock of metaphysical, and especially psychological techni- 
calities, was esteemed anything but superfluous for him who 
seeks after quietude and illumination; but advance in this 
direction was made only up to a certain point, and no farther. 
Speculations like those which were proposed can only be 
thoroughly comprehensible when they present themselves as 
a complete, self-contained circle. But here we have a fragment 
of a circle, to complete which, and to find the centre of which, is 
forbidden, for it would involve an inquiry after things wHoIl 
do not contribute to deliverance and happiness. "When we tiy 
to resuscitate in onr own way and in our own language tho 
thoughts that are embedded in the Buddhist teaching, we can 
scarcely help forming the impression that it was not a mere 
idle statement which the sacred texts preserve to us, that tie 
Perfect One knew much more which he thought inadvisable to 
aay, than what he esteemed it profitable to his disciples to 
unfold. For that which is declared points for its eipUnatioii 
and completion to something else, which is passed ovw is 
silence — for it seemed not to serve for quietude, illuminationi 
the Nirv&na — but of which wo can scarcely help believing ^'' 
it was really present in the minds of Buddha and those 
to whom we owe the compilation of the dogmatic text 



0AP8 IN THE 878TEM. 20'J 



Tjeie Four Sacred Truths. The First, and Buddhist 

Pessimism. 

-Ajicient tradition, like Nature, provides us witli a starting- 
^<^icit, equally commended to us by ancient tradition and by 
lio natural condition of the question itself, from wliicli we 
tixxst begin our sketcb of Buddhist teaching. At the basis of 
■to whole body of Buddhist thought lies, like a permeating 
••^d leavening principle, the contemplation of the suffering of 
i\roiy form of life here on earth.* The four sacred truths of 
'-to Buddhists treat of suffering, of the origin of suffering, of 
to removal of suffering, and of the path to the removal of 
^^flEering : it is evermore the word and the idea of suffering 
^liich gives the key-note to Buddhist thought. 

In these four truths we have the oldest authentic expression 
*^ this thought. We may describe this as the Buddhist creed, 
'^lile most of the categories and propositions which we find 
"^^ tedded in Buddhist teaching are treated, not as something 
^Oculiar to this faith, but as the obviously common property of 
•11 reflecting religious minds,t ^^^ ^^^^ sacred truths always 
''P^pear to us as something which the Buddhists hold beyond 

'•^ If Baddhism be treated strictly as philosophical doctrine, it must 
■^^eed be admitted that it looks upon the suffering of the universe not as 
••^^ ultimate hypothesis, but as the product of deeper-lying factors. We 
*^^^ht therefore be tempted in reviewing the system to begin preferably 
*^ith the latter, with the fundamental metaphysical notions of Buddhism. 
*" t appears to me, however, more in keeping with the subject to follow the 
•^^"tirse laid down by our authorities themselves, and to state the result 
^^^^«t, instead of the premises, the former being foremost and most 
^^^iportant for the rehgious consciousness, though probably not so in 
^^inct dialectic. 

t JE.ff., the doctrine of metempsychosis, of ecstatic conditions, the idea 
"^f the saint (Arhat), etc. 

14 



210 THE FOUR SACRED TRUTHS. 

all non-Buddhists,* as tlio kernel and the pole of the DhamirxA 
(the Doctrine). Many were the steps of knowledge whioli 
Baddha had taken on his long and toilsome journey to ttte 
Buddhahood: yet evermore was there something wanting fco 
his attainment of the knowledge that gives deliverance. Oxi 
that night, under the A9vattha tree at Uruvela, the four trutlm- ^ 
at last dawn on him; they become the key-stone of hL^ 
knowledge ; now he is the Buddha. And when he goes t ^^ 
Benares to preach to the five monks what he has himset ^ 
learned — ^^Open ye your ears, ye monks; the deliverance fron^^^ 
death is found: I instruct you, I preach the Law'' — agaii 
there are those very four sacred truths which constitute the 
gospel of the newly-discovered path of peace (p. 128 seq.). 
And throughout the long career of Buddha as a teacher, as it 
is depicted for us in the sacred texts, the discourse on the foui 
truths is constantly coming to the front as that " which is the 
most prominent announcement of the Buddhas.'' The Buddhists 
describe ignorance as being the ultimate and most deeply- 
hidden root of all the suflFering in the universe: if anyone 
inquires the ignorance of what is regarded as this fatal power^ 
the uniform answer comes : the ignorance of the four sacrec 
truths. And thus we find these propositions times without-^^^ 
number in the canonical texts repeated, discussed, and their-*::::^ ^ 
importance magnified in extravagant terms. It is difficultc^" -*^ 
to avoid the presumption that the thoughts they convey and^S^ 
the wording in which they are expressed go back to Buddha^^^ * 
himself, or at any rate to Buddha's first circle of followers. 

* To give but one proof out of many : if sun and moon do not shine -^^^^^^ 
it is said in the " Samyuttaka Nikaya" (vol. iii, fol. am), darkness preraOs ^^ 
in the world ; day and night, months and years are not observable. Sc^ ^ 
also darkness prevails in the world, if perfect, saintly BuddhUs do no ""^ 
appear in it; then the four sacred truths are not preached, taught^^ 
proclaimed, revealed, etc. 



i TEESION OF TEE FOUR TRUTHS. 211 

, We here repeat these propositions, as they have already met 
IB in the sermon at Benares, in order to lay them as a founda- 
aoQ for our sketch of the Buddhist teaching. 

" This, monkH, is the sacred truth of suffering : Birth is 
differing, old age is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is 
tnffering, to bo united with the unloved is suffering, to be 
leparated from the loved is suffering, not to obtain what one 
leairea is suffering, in short the five-fold clinging (to the 
jarthly*) is suffering, 

" This, monks, is the sacred truth of the origin of suffering : 
t ia the thirst (for being) which leads from birth to birth, 
ogether with lust and desire, which finds gratification here 
ltd there : the thirst for pleasures, the thirst for being, the 
birst for power, 

"This, monks, is the sacred truth of the extinction of 
offering : the extinction of this thirst by completo annihilation 
f desire, lotting it go, expelling it, separating oneself from it, 
[iviag it no room. 

" This, monks, is the sacred truth of the path which leads 

the extinction of suffering t it is this sacred, eight-fold path, 
to wit; Right Faith, Right Resolve, Right Speech, Right 
jiction, Right Living, Right Effort, Right Thought, Right 

8eIf-concentration."t 

[ • The hankering after corporeal form, after sensations, perceptions, 
conformation 9, and after conseiouaness. — Koppen (i, 232, n. 1) finds quite 
ponndlessly in tlieae last words a " metaphysical postscript " to the 
tipDal text of the four trutlis. Duddhiem has at all times possessed 

1 much of metaphysical terminology aa ia comprised ia theae words. 

t "Kdppen," i, 325, n. 2; " Theae eight divisions or branches also do 
irt belong originally to the airaple dogma." We cannot enter a strong 
llBough protest against this setting aside of everything which militates 
W"inat this gratuitous conceit of a peculiar simplicity of the earliest 
poddhiam. It cannot count up to eight without it beinf; suspected of 
f metaphysical postseripts !" 



212 THE PIB8T OP THE FOUR 8ACBED TRUTHS. 

The four troths give expression to Baddhist pessimism in ii 
characteristic singularity. 

They teach us first of all to direct attention to what thii 
pessimism is not. 

A widespread opinion finds the nltimate gronnd of tliis-^ 
pessimism in the thought that^ of all that is^ the true existence -^ 
is the Nothing. — The Nothing is alone certain. And if the 
world which surrounds us^ or appears to surround us, is not 
wholly unreal, if it contains a certain^ though ever so hollow a 
degree of existence^ which cannot be ignored^ this is a misf ortipie; 
and it is wrong, for right is only the Nothing. The wrong 
must be removed ; we must remove it. Being, which originated 
in and from nothing, must again go to nothing, for it is 
essentially nothing.* 

A strange error is this picture of what Buddhism is repre- 
sented to have been. Whoever looks, not into the metaphysical 
speculations of later centuries, but into what the oldest tradi- 
tions disclose to us of the teaching of Buddha, of the belief of 
that order of wandering mendicants, will not find therein one 

tenet of these all lucubrations regarding the Nothing. Neither 
openly expressed nor otherwise, neither in the foreground, nor 
in the &rthest background of the religious thought, does the -^ 
idea of the Nothing find a place. The tenets of the sacred truths^ 
show us clearly enough that, if this world has been weighed by — 
the Buddhists and found wanting, the ground of this is not, that^ 
it, an illusory, specious something, is in reality a mere nothing,,^ 
but the sole ground is that it consists of suffering and nothing^ 
but suffering. 

All life is suffering : this is the inexhaustible theme, whichj^ 

* Adolf Wuttke has made by far the most clever and intelligent efforts 
to evolve Buddhism from these fundamental thoughts, tnde " G-escliicIit-^ 
dee Heidenthums," ii, 520 seq., especially pp. 65, 635. Cf. also '• Zoppen,"^ ' 

214 seq. 



THE SOTSma AND SORROW. 



2io 



a the strict forma of abstract phi!o3opliica,l discussioTi 
and now in the garoieiit of poetical proverb, evermore comes 
g in our eara from Baddbiat Kterature. We may taks 
as tho standard dialectic expression of this thought one of 
those discourses which Buddha, according to tradition, held at 
Benares soou after his first sermon, before those five earliest 
disciples, to whom he first proclaimed the four sacred truths.* 

"And the Exalted One," so the tradition narrates, " spake 
to the five monks thus : 

" The material form, monks, is not the self. If material 
n were tho self, monks, this material form could not be 
snbject to sickness, and a man shonld be able to say regarding 
lus material form : my body shall be so and so ; my body shall 
aot be ao and so. But inasmuch, monks, as material form is 
not the self, therefore is material form subject to sickness, and 
small cannot say as regards his material form : my body shall 
le BO and so ; my body shall not be so and ao. 

"The sensations, monks, are not the self" — and then 
fellows in detail regarding the sensations, the very same 
eipoaition which has been given regarding the body. Then 
comes the same detailed explanation regarding the remaining 
three component elements, the perceptions, the conformations, 
&B conscionsness, which in combination with the material 
Jbim and the sensation constitate man's sentient state of being. 
Then Buddha goes on to say : 

" How think ye then, monks, is material form permanent 
' impermanent ?" 

" Impermanent, sire." 

" But is that which is impermanent, sorrow or joy ?" 
" Sorrow, sire." 

* This discourse is nsoallf described aB the " Satta of the tokens of 
pt-self " (of the non-ego]. The text is to be found in the " MaLaragga," 
6, 38 seq. 



214 THE FIB8T OF THE FOUB BACKED TBUTHB. 

" But if a man duly considers that which is impermanent, 
full of sorrow, subject to change, can he say : that is mine, that 
is I, that is myself?'* 

'' Sire, he cannot/' 

Then follows the same exposition in similar terms regarding 
sensations, perceptions, conformations, and consciousness : 
after which the discourse proceeds : 

'^ Therefore, O monks, whatever in the way of material form 
(sensations, perceptions, etc., respectively) has ever been, will 
be, or is, either in our cases, or in the outer world, or strong 
or weak, or low or high, or far or near, it is not self : this 
must he in truth perceive, who possesses real knowledge. 
Whosoever regards things in this light, O monks, being a 
wise and noble hearer of the word, turns himself from material 
form, turns himself from sensatiou and perception, from 
conformation and consciousness. When he turns therefrom, 
he becomes free from desire; by the cessation of desire he 
obtains deliverance ; in the delivered there arises a consciousness 
of his deliverance : re-birth is extinct, holiness is completed, 
duty is accomplished ; there is no more a return to this world, 
he knows." 

The characteristic fundamental outlines of Brahmanical 
speculation turn up again in this discourse of Buddha's with 
dominant force. We have shown how that speculation works 
in the conception of a dualism. On one side the eternal 
immutable, which is endowed with the predicates of supreme 
freedom and happiness : that is the Brahma, and the Brahma is 
nothing else but man's own true self (Atman). On the other 
side the world of origination and decease, birth, old age, death, 
in a word, of suffering. From this very dualism flow the 
ground-axioms, on which Buddha's discourse on the not-self 
proceeds : that proposition, which needed no proof for the 



DIALECTIC FOUNDATION OF PESSIMISM. 



215 



Buddhists, that refuge can only he had where origination and 

iS.ecoase bavo no dominion, the identity of the ideas of change 

md sorrowj the conviction that the self of man (att& = 

.nsk, fttman) cannot belong to the world of evolution. The 

^elements, in which the empirical state of man matures itself, 

«re liable to continual chang3; the bodily as well as the 

Kfipiritual life flows on, while one event ia linked to another and 

kloses up with another. Man stands helpless in the middle of 

is stream, the waves of which he cannot keep back or control. 

3 cannot attain happiness or peace ; how can happiness and 

peace be thought of, where there is no continuance, but only 

Buncontrollable change holds sway? But if he cannot press 

abi& impermanence into his service, he can sever himself 

: where all contact with the earthly ceases, thei-e are 

(deliverance and freedom.* 

At ous point this discourse oa the transitory nature of the 

irthly, shows a gap in its train of thought; to fill .up which 

|-was, as we shall see later on, with a definite purpose omitted. 

EOoe portion of the old Brahmanical dualism, the belief in an 

i external world' involving origiuatiou, decease aud suffering, is 

ladopted without reservation. What is the attitude of Buddha's 

^doctrine with reference to the other side of this dualism ? 

iVhnt does it teach regarding the eternal, the Atman ? It is 

laid that whatever is subject to change and suffering cannot 

I the self. Is, then, the self something raised above this 

phenomenal world, separated from it, or has it no existence at 

Is deiiverauce a return of the self which is involved in 

ihauge to itself, to its freedom ? or is there nothing left, which 

"What IB inconstant, is sorrow; what ia sorrow, is not-self; what is 

pot-self, that is not mine, that am not I, that ia not myself." " Sainyut- 

likK Nikiya," vol. ii, fol. ta, where the equivalence of the categories 

Win^afadia carried, out to a great lenglji in. repetitiom of alHuad». 



21Q TEE FIRST OF THE FOXIB SACRED TRUTHS. 

in the disappearance of the transitory, shows itself real an 
permanent? We note for the present that the sermon at 
Benares leaves these questions open. The answer to them, sc^ 
far as Buddhism has given any answer at all to them, can. 
claim our attention only in another connection. 

We return to the Buddhist thoughts of the imperma- 
nence and sorrow of earthly things. The abstract and ideal 
development of these thoughts has been unfolded to us 
in the discourse quoted. But this is only a one-sided, 
imperfect expression. In a form, the most concrete, with 
the convincing and overwhelming force of a painful reality, 
there is ever present to the vision of the Buddhist, the picture 
of the universe and man enveloped in suffering. There are 
not shadows only, not clouds, which sorrow and death cast 
over human life, but sorrow and death pertain inseparably 
to every state of being. Through the delusion of happiness 
and youth, the Buddhist looks on to the sorrow into which 
happiness and youth must soon turn. Behind the sorrowful 
present lies an immeasurable sorrowful past, and there 
extends equally immeasurably through the endless distance, 
which the belief in the transmigration of souls discloses to the 
awe-struck imagination, a future full of sorrows for him who 
does not succeed in attaining deliverance, '^ putting an end 
to sorrow.^' 

"The pilgrimage (Sams^ra) of beings, my disciples,'' 
Buddha says,* '^ has its beginning in eternity. No opening 
can be discovered, from which proceeding, creatures, mazed in 
ignorance, fettered by a thirst for being, stray and wander. 
What think ye, disciples, whether is more, the water which 
is in the four great oceans, or the tears which have flown 
from you and have been shed by you, while ye strayed and 

* " Samynttaka NikAya," vol. i, fol. tho. 



SlRTIl, OJJ) AGE, DEATH. 



Wandered on this long'pilgrimage, and eorrowed and weptj 
tecanse that was your portion whicli ye abhorred and thai 
which ye loved was not yonr portion? A mother's death, 
a father's death, a brother's death, a sister's death, a son'e 
death, a daughter's death, the loss of relations, the loss of ■ 
property) all this have ye experienced through long ages. 
And while ye experienced this through long ages, moro tears 
Jiave flown from you and have been shed by you, while ya 
strayed and wandered on this long pilgrimage, and sorrowed! 
and wept, because that was your portion which ye abhorred" 
and that which ye loved was not your portion, than all th( 
■water which is in tho four great oceans." 

Birth, old age, death, are the leading forms in which the^ 
eorrow of earthly existence is depicted. " If these things 
Mot in the world, my disciples, the Perfect One, the holy, 
supreme Buddha, would not appear in the world, the law and 
the Doctrine, which the Perfect One propounds, would not 
ehine in the world. What three things are they? Birth and 
old age and death."* Impermanence holds sway with the 
pitiless, inexorable power of natural necessity. "There are 
five things which no Samana, and no Brahman, and no god, 
neither Mftra, nor Brahma, nor any being in the universe, can 
bring about. What five things are these ? That what is 
subject to old age, should not grow old, that what is subject 
to sickness, should not be sick, that what is subject to death, 
should not die, that what is subject to decay, should not decay, 
that what is liable to pass away, should not pass away — this can 
no Samana bring about, nor any Brahman, nor any god, neither 
Kara, nor Brahma, nor any being in the univer3e."t 

• " Aaguttara KikSya," to!, iiii fol. thai. 

t From tho djscourae with irhich tlie monk N;\radn coraoled the Mop 
Muncla at Pntaliputta on the death of the Queen Bhaidk.—Angutlara 
Nik&i/a, vol. ii, fol. khai. 



218 THE FIRST OF THE FOUR BACKED TBUTHB. 

Tlie actions of men who pursne eartlily pleasures, are under 
the curse of impermanence, illusion, vanity. Paining, deceiv- 
ing, sweeping, destroying, turning hoped-for enjoyments into 
sorrow and death, the inexorable necessity of progression 
holds dominion over all life and hopes. Whoever seeks to 
acquire worldly goods, the merchant, the farmer, the shepherd, 
the soldier, the civil servant of the crown, must expose himself 
to the inconveniences of heat and cold, the bite of serpents, to 
hunger and to thirst.* If he does not gain the object of his 
pursuit, he laments and grieves : in vain did I exert myself, 
in vain was all my labour. If he attains his object, he must 
guard his gains with anxiety and trouble, that kings or 
robbers may not wrest them from him, that fire may not burn 
them, that floods may not sweep them away, that they may 
not fall into the hands of hostile relations. To gain property 
and gratify desire, kings wage war, father or mother quarrels 
with son, brother with brother, warriors make their arrows fly, 
and their swords flash, and they brave death and mortal 
agonies. To gain pleasure, men break their word, commit 
robbery, murder, adultery : they endure excruciating tortures 
as human punishments, and when their bodies succumb in 
death, they go the way of evil-doers; in the kingdoms of hell 
they will be born again to new torments. 

And these same powers of decadence and sorrow, to which 
human life is subject and which extend through all hells, have 
also power over heaven. The gods may have assured to them 
an incomparably longer and more happy state of being than 
earthly humanity : still even they are not immortal or free 
from sorrow. "The three and thirty gods, and the Y&ma- 
gods, the happy deities, the gods who joy in creation, and the 
ruling gods, bound by the chain of desire, return within the 

* 1 here paraphrase briefly a part of the '' Mahadukkhakkhandha 
Suttanta *' (in the Majjhima NikHya). 



BIRTE, OLD AGE, DEATH. 



2i0 



power of Mara. Tiie wliole universe ia consamed with flames, 
the whole universe is enveloped in smoke, the whole universe 
13 on fire, the whole universe trembles."* 

The proverbial wisdom of the "Dhammapada" gives the 
truest picture of all of Buddhist thought and feeling, how the 
disciples of Buddha saw in everything earthly the one thing, 
vanity and decay. 

"How can ye bo gay,"t it i^ said, "how can ye indulge 
desire ? Evermore the flames bum. Darkness surrounds 
jou : will ye not seek the light ?" 

" Man gathers flowers ; his heart is set on pleasure. Death 
comes upon him, like the floods of water on a village, and 
sweeps him away." 

" Man gathers flowers ; his heart is set on pleasure. The 
Destroyer brings the man of insatiable desire within his 
clutch." 

" Neither in the aerial region, nor in the depths of the sea, 
nor if thou piercest into the clefts of the mountains, wilt thou 
find any place on this earth where the hand of death will not 
reach thee." 

" From merriment cometh sorrow : from merriment cometh 
fear. Whosoever is free from merriment, for him there is no 
Borrow : whence should como feai' to him ? " 

" From love cometh sorrow : from love cometh fear : whoso- 
ever is free from love, for him there is no sorrow : whence 
should come fear to him ? " 

" Wlioso looketh down upon the world, as though he gazed 
on a mere bubble or a dream, him the ruler Death beholdeth 
not." 

" Whosoever hath traversed the evil, trackless path of the 

• From the " Bliiikliunt Samyutta," vol. i, fol. ghai. 

t " DhanmiapBda," r, 146, 47, 48, 128, 312, 213, 170, 414. 



220 THE FIRST OF TEE FOUR BACKED TBVTH8. 

Sans&ra^ of error^ who hatli pushed on to the end^ hath 
reached the shore, rich in meditation, free from desire, free 
from irresolution, who, freed from being, hath found rest, 
him I call a true Brahman/' 

Is it dialectic only with its comparison between the notions 
of becoming, decease, sorrow, which causes the world to 
appear to the Buddhist that immeasurable, painful waste ? 

It is true, indeed, that wherever the popular mind cannot 
obtain a sure anchorage for itself in the firm and clear realities 
of practical life, where it is under the overpowering influence 
of thought, of dreamy fancy without any counterpoise, there 
speculation, with its real or supposed logical conclusions, 
gains an incalculable influence as to which shall be the 
answer given by individuals as well as collective masses, to 
the question whether life is worth living. But it is not merely 
the speculation of the Indian which furnishes the answer. 
Speculation is bound up with his wishes and hopes ; it shares 
with them the character of impatient impetuosity, untrained to 
deal with realities. Thought, which passes over everything, 
and arrives with one bound at the absolute, finds its counter- 
part in a craving whose impatience pushes from itself all 
goods, which are not the supreme, everlasting good. But 
what is the supreme good ? As the glow of the Indian sun 
causes rest in cool shades to appear to the wearied body the 
good of goods, so also with the wearied soul, rest, eternal 
rest, is the only thing for which it craves. Of this L'fe, which 
promises to the cheerful sturdiness of an iudustrious, struggling 
people, thousands of gifts and thousands of good things, the 
Indian merely scrapes the surface and turns away from it in 
weariness. The slave is tired of his servitude, the despot is 
still sooner and more completely wearied of his despotism, its 
unlimited enjoyment. The Buddhist propositions regarding 



TlIE TOWB OF BUDDHISM SOT RESIGNATION. 



331 



tite 80rrow of aU that is transitory are the sharp and trenchant 
expression, which these dispositions of the Indian people have 
framed for themselves, an espreasion, the commentary to which 
is written not alone in the sermon at Benares and in the 
apothegms of the " Dhammapada,'^ but in indelibla characters 
in the whole of the mournful history of this unhappy people. 

In some of the sayings, which we have quoted from the 
" Dhammapadaj" the thought of the impermanence and unsnb- 
staatiality of the earthly world 13 blended with the praise 
of him who has succeeded in breaking the fotters which bind 
him to the prison-house. And this brings us to fill in a 
necessary part without which our sketch of the Buddhist 
pessimism would be very incomplete. Some writers have 
'often represented the tone prevailing in it, as if it were 
peculiarly characterized by a feehug of melancholy which 
bewails in endless grief the unreality of being, lu this they 
have altogether misunderstood Buddhism. The true Buddhist 
certainly sees in this world a state of continuous sorrow, 
but this sorrow only awakes in him a feeling of compassion 
for those who are yet in the world; for himself he feels no 
sorrow or compassion, for he knows he is near his goal which 
stands awaiting him, noble beyond all else. Is this goal 
annihilation ? Perhaps it is. We cannot here answer this 
qaestion yet. But be this as it may, the Baddhist is far 
from bewailing as a misfortune, or as an injury, to which he 
must submit with sad resignation as to an unalterable destiny, 
the constitution of things, which baa provided just this goal 
and only this goal for man's existence. He seeks Nirvana 
with the same joyous sense of victory in prospect, with 
which the Christian looks forward to his goal, everlasting life. 

The following sayings alao of the "Dhammapada" reflect 
this spirit*: — ■ 

• Verse 94, 197 Beii. 373. 



222 TEE FIRST OF THE FOUR 8A0RED TRUTHS. 

""Ee whose appetites are at rest, like steeds thorouglily 
broken in by the trainer, he who has pnt away pride, who is 
free from impurity, him thus perfect the gods themselves 
envy/' 

" In perfect joy we live, without enemy in this world of 
enmity; among men filled with enmity we dwell without 
enmity/' 

''In perfect joy we live, hale among the sick; among sick 
men we dwell without sickness/' 

" In perfect joy we live, without toil among toilers ; among 
toiliug men we dwell without toil." 

'' In perfect joy we live, to whom belongeth nothing. Our 
scrip is pleasantness, as of the effulgent gods." 

'' The monk who dwells in an empty abode, whose soul is 
full of peace, enjoys superhuman felicity, gazing solely on the 
truth." 

It is not enough to say that the final goal to which the Buddhist 
strives to pass as an escape from the sorrow of the world, is 
Nirv&na. It is also necessary to any delineation of Buddhism 
to note as a fact assured beyond all doubt, that internal 
cheerfulness, infinitely surpassing all mere resignation, with 
which the Buddhist pursues this end. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE TENETS OF THE OEIGIN AND THE EXTINCTION 

OF SUFFERING. 



The Formula of the Causal Nexus. 

In order to understand the first of the four sacred truths, 
the tenet of suffering, we needed to acquaint ourselves only 
with the criticism which Buddha^s discourses give of the events 
of daily life, the dispositions and inclinations which govern our 
actions, and the consequences which follow from them. The 
tenets of the origin of suffering and its extinction bring us out 
of the domain of the popular speculative view of life, into the 
realms of abstract notions of Buddhist dogmatic, and therewith 
into a region where the ground vanishes from beneath our feet 
at every step. 

'^ This, monks, is the sacred truth of the origin of suffering : 
ifc is the thirst (for being), which leads from birth to birth, 
together with lust and desire, which finds gratification here 
and there : the thirst for pleasures, the thirst for being, the 
thirst for power. 

" This, O monks, is the sacred truth of the extinction of 
suffering : the extinction of this thirst by complete annihilation 
of desire, letting it go, expelliug it, separating oneself from it, 
giWng it no room.'' 



224 ORIGIN AND ETTINCTION OF SORROW. 

The state of being, as it surrounds us in tbis world, with its 
restless oscillation between origination and decease^ is our 
misfortune. The ground of our existing is our will. This is 
our besetting sin, that we will to be, that we will to be our- 
selves, that we fondly will our being to blend with other being 
and extend. The negation of the will to be, cuts off being, 
for us at least. Thus the two tenets of the origin of suffering 
and its cessation, comprise the sum of all human action and all 
human destiny. 

But the sum must be resolved into the elements of which it 
is composed. The former tenet, as we have quoted it, speaks 
of the thirst for being, which leads from one birth to another. 
Whence. this birth? It, the ground of our being, on what 
ground does it itself rest ? And what law, what mechanism is 
there, what intermediate links are there, by which the repeti- 
tion of our being, re-birth with its sorrows, is connected with 
it? 

The very oldest traditions from which we draw our account 
of Buddhist speculations, show that these questions had been 
asked. People found the brief and concise setting of the 
sacred truths obviously inadequate and two formulas, or, more 
correctly speaking, a bipartite formula was drawn up, which 
was intended to supplement, or rather strengthen, the tenets 
regarding the origin of suffering and its cessation, the formula 
of the ^' Causal Nexus of being '\ (paticcasamupp&da).* 

Tradition assigns to this formula the next place in sacredness 
to the four truths. The knowledge of the four verities is what 
makes Buddha Buddha; the formula of the causal nexus, 
which had occurred to him already before the attainment of 

* This is frequently designated in later literature the formula of the 
twelve nidanas (Bases of Existence), an expression which, as far as I 
know, occurs neither in Buddha's discourses nor in the Yinaya texts. 



T3E FOBMULA OF THE CAUSAL JWXUS. 



225 



laddhahood had been rouchaafed to lain, occupied his mind 
irliile he eita under the tree of knowledgej " enjoying the 
happiness of deliverance."* And when he combats the fear 
hat bis gospel will not be comprehended on earth, it is 
lespecially the law of the causal nexus of being, to which this 
attaches : " Men who move in a worldly sphere, who have 
tbeir lot cast and find their enjoyments in a worldly sphere, 
will find this matter hard to grasp, the law of canaality, the 
chain of causes and effects. "f 

Occasionally the sacred texts make the formola of the causal 
ixna actually an integral portion of the sacred truths them- 
selves, by omitting the second and third truths and inserting 
in their stead this formula in its two branches^ 

The propositions of the causal nexus of being, in tho form 
■which is most commonly met with in the traditions, and 
which may be regarded as the most ancient form, with their 
double, their positive and negative, arrangement — " forwards 
and backwards," as the tests espress themselves — are worded 
as follows : — 

From ignorance come conformations {sankhiirfl) j from 
conformations comes consciousness (vinnflna) ; from conscious- 
ness come name and corporeal form ; from name and cor- 
poreal form come the six fields ;§ from the six fields comes 

• "Mahavftgga,":, l(Bnpra,pp. 116, 117). Inthe "Sw!iyuttaNit{l.ya" 
(Phayre MS., vol. i, fol. ja) Budiiha saja that, in hia case as in the case 
of the prior Buddhas, the knowledge of this hitherto unheard-of wisdom 
dawned on him before the attainment of the Buddhahood (pabbeva me 
htiikkhave sambodhii. anabhisambuddhasaa). 

t Vide Bupra, p. 120, 

J So in the " Angnttara Nikaya " (Tikanipata, Phajre MS., vol. i, fol. 
«■). 

§ The fields of the air sensoH and their ohJeetB, la addition to the 
tn WMCT the IndJBPg reckoned nnderatandiiig (mano) the aixfe. 



226 THE FORMULA OF THE CAU8AL NEXUS. 

contact (between the senses and their objects) ; from contact 
comes sensation ; from sensation comes thirst (or desire) ; from 
thirst comes clingmg (to existence : up^d^na) ; from clinging 
(to existence) comes being (bhava) ; from being comes birth ; 
from birth come old age and deaths pain and lamentation^ 
sufferings anxiety and despair. This is the origin of the whole 
realm of suffering. 

'* But if ignorance be removed by the complete extinction of 
desire, this brings about the removal of conformations; by 
the removal of conf ormations^ consciousness is removed ; by 
the removal of consciousness^ name and corporeal form are 
removed ; by the removal of name and corporeal form, the six 
fields are removed; by the removal of the six fields^ contact 
(between the senses and their objects) is removed; by the 
removal of contact^ sensation is removed ; by the removal of 
sensation^ thirst is removed; by the removal of thirsty the 
clinging (to existence) is removed; by the removal of the 
clinging (to existence), being is removed ; by the removal of 
teing, birth is removed ; by the removal of birth, old age and 
death, pain and lamentation, suffering, anxiety, and despair 
are removed. Tliis is the removal of the whole realm of 
suffering.'' * 

The attempt is here made by the use of brief pithy phrases 
to trace back the suffering of all earthly existence to its most 
remote roots. The answer is as confused as the question was 
bold. It is utterly impossible for anyone who seeks to find 
out its meaning, to trace from beginning to end a connected 
meaning in this formula. Most of the links of the chain, taken 
separately, admit of a passable interpretation ; many arrange 
themselves also in groups together, and their articulation may 
be said to be not incomprehensible ; but between these groups 
there remain contradictions and impossibilities in the conseca« 



COliSClOUSNESS AND CORPOREAL FORM. 327 

dve arrangement of priority and aequonce, wliich an exact 
exegesis has not the power, and is not permitted to clear np. 
Even the ancient Buddhist theologians, who were by no means 
accustomed to construe too strictly in every case the i-equire- 
meat that "ein Begriff muss bei dem Worto sein,"* found 
tere a stumbing-blocli ; the variations, with which the formula 
of causality is fouud in the sacred writings, afford unmis- 
takable evidence of this. 



The Third Link is the Chain op CAfSALiTT. 

It seems advisable for the explanation of the formula of 
.nsality not to begin at the beginning. The first links of the 
Beries — the ultimate ground of earthly existence, ignorance, 
And the "conformations" which develop themselves from 
ignorance — are in their nature much more difScnlt of compre- 
liension by concrete explanation than the following categories. 
TVe shaU return later on to the attempt here made to denomi- 
iiake the cause of causes ; at present we begin where con- 
scioosneas appears in the chain of categories and with it we 
step npon the ground of conceivable reality. The sacred texts 
also apparently justify us in proceeding thus, as they them- 
selves often begin the chain of causality with the category of 
consoiousness, omitting the first members. " Ignorance " and 
conformations" are evidently among the things, of which 
Buddhist dogmatists have, as far as possible, omitted to speak. 
" From consciousness " — runs the third proposition in the 
eeries — "come name and corporeal form." 

• Gothc's "Faust," Dialogue of Mephistopheles and the Student. 
A meaniiig mart underlie vor6a."-r{3yan«lalor.} 



228 THE THIRD LINK IN THE CHAIN OF CAV8AUTT, 

One of the dialogues on this subject in the collection of the 
sacred texts^ in which Buddha unfolds to his beloved disciple^ 
Ananda^ the greater part of the formula of causality^* gives 
us a very conci*ete explanation of this proposition^ which 
undoubtedly expounds the original meaning. '^ If conscious- 
ness^ Ananda^ did not enter into the womb^ would name and 
corporeal formf arise in the womb ? '' — ^^ No, sire/' — '^ And 
if consciousness, Ananda, after it has entered into the womb, 
were again to leave its place, would name and corporeal form 
be bom into this life V^ — "No, sire/' — "And if consciousness, 
Ananda, were again lost to the boy or to the girl, while they 
were yet small, would name and corporeal form attain growth, 
increase, progress ? " — " No, sire/' 

Thus the proposition, " From consciousness comes name and 
corporeal form," leads us to the moment of conception. We 
shall, when treating of the Buddhist notions of soul and 
metempsychosis, come to understand from another point of 
view still more completely the ideas which meet us here ; here 
we must only state this much, that in death the other elements, 
which constitute the body-cum-spirit state of being of a man, 
are dissolved; the body, the sensations, the perceptions vanish, 
but not the consciousness (viiinana). Consciousness forms, so 
long as the existent is bound in metempsychosis, the connecting 

* The Mahanidanasntta (Diglia jN^ikaya). 

t I reserve for the Excursus the more particular statements which the 
acred texts make regarding this double notion of " name and corporeal 
form," derived from older Brahmanical speculation. Originally in this 
expression undoubtedly the JN^ame, in so^far as it expresses what is only 
^his person and no other, is regarded as a peculiar element anne:;|[ed to the 
body, somehow connected with the body, and this interpretation has not 
wholly disappeared from the Buddhist texts. Meanwhile another view 
grew up, by which " name " was understood to include the more subtle 
immaterial functions connected with the body in contradistinction to the 
body formed of earth, water, fire, and air. 




CONSCIOVSNESB AND CORFORBAL FORM. 

ink whiclt connects the old esistencea with the new; not till 
le bourne of delivemnce] the nirvana is reached, does the 
insciousness also of the dying perfect one vanish into nothing. 
B the hnman body is formed ont of the material elementSj so 
Koiscionsness also is regarded as consisting of an analogous 
Jjiritnal element. " There are six elements, my disciples," 
lys Buddha, " tho element of earth, the element of water, the 
llement of fire, the element of air, the element of mbher, the 
^ment of consciousness." The stuff of which consciousness 
1 made is highly exalted above the other elements j it dwells, 
a it were, in its own world. " Conacionsness," it is written, 
the indemonstrable, tho everlasting, the aU-illuminating ; it 
I where nor water nor earth, nor fire nor air, finds a place, in 
rhich greatness and smallness, weakness and strength, beauty 
ad non-beaaty, in which name and material form ceaso 
Itogether." 

That which in the dying man is conatructed of this highest 
l£ earthly elements, the consciousness-element, becomes at the 
noment when the old being dies the germ of a new being; 
ibis germ of consciousness seeks and finds in the womb thu 
aterial stuffs, from which it forms a new state of being coined 
name and material form. 

But as name and material form rest on consciousness, so also 
he latter rests on the former. Those passages in the texts, 
rbich do not carry back the line of causality to the ultimate 
md, to Ignorance, are wont to make it run in a circle with 
le two categories interchangeably dependent on one another 
have already quoted from Buddha's and Ananda'a dialogue 
passage bearing on the one side of this subject, on tho 
that name and material form rest on consciousness. 
On the other side, then, it is said in the same conversation : 
" If, Anatida, consctousness were not to iind name and materia 



230 THE THIRD LINK IN THE CHAIN OP CAV8ALITT, 

form as its resting-place, would then birth, old age, and death, 
the origin and development of sorrow, reveal themselves in 
succession ? '^ — "No, sire, they would not/' — "Therefore, 
Ananda, is this the cause, this the ground, this the origin, this 
the basis of consciousness: name and material form/' And 
thus comprehensively are the bases on which all nameability 
and all existence of the existent, their birth, death, and re-birth, 
rest, described as "name and material form combined with 
consciousness/' 

We extract from other texts some more characteristic 
passages for the elucidation of this subject : — 

" What must there be, in order that there may be name and 
material form? Whence come name and material form? — 
Consciousness must be in order that there may be name and 
material form; from consciousness come name and material 
form. — What must there be in order that there may be 
consciousness ? Whence comes consciousness ? — ^Name and 
material form must be, in order that there may be con- 
sciousness j from name and material form comes consciousness. 
Then, my disciples, the Bodhisatti Vipassi* thought : 
consciousness conversely depends on name and material form : 
the chain goes no farther/'f 

And in another placej the following simile is put into the 
mouth of S&riputta, the greatest authority among Buddha's 
disciples : " My friend, as two bundles of sticks leaning 
against each other stand, so also, my friend, consciousness 
grows out of name and material form, and name and material 

* Vipassi is one of the mythical Buddhas of the past, to whom are 
attributed these reflections on the chain X>£ casuality, while he was still 
Bodhisatta (pursuing the path to the Buddhahood). 

t Mahapadhanasutta (Bigha Nikaya), second Bhanav&ra. 

X " Samyatta N." vol. i, fol. nah*. 



THE SIX FIELDS- aONTACT— SENSATION. 



231 



fapm ont of conscioasness." It "grows ont of" it — ^thia is not 
intended to convey that conscionsness is the element, ont of 
which name and material form are made : it is merely tantamount 
to saying, that consciousness is tho forming power, which 
originates from the material elements or being, which bears 
a name and is clothed with a body. 

The FotisTe to the Eleventh Lins in the Chain of 
Causaiitt. 

When the spirit has found its body and tho body found 
the spirit and united itself to it, this being compounded of 
Bpii-it and body, provides itself with organs to put itself 
into commnnication with the external world. " From name 
and material form," runs the fourth term of the formula, 
"come the six fields"* — the "six fields of the subject" 
(ajjhattika Ayatana), eye, ear, nose, tongue, body (as organ for 
eensations of touch), understanding,t and the six corresponding 
fields of the object world, corporeal forms as tho object of the 
■eye, and so on — sounds, odours, taste, tangibility, and last, as 
the object of the understanding, thoughts (or ideas, notions, 
'"dhammA"), which are represented evidently as something 
standing present before the thinking faculty in quite an objective 

* Theveraion contained in the "MaMnidiLiiasatta" (Dialogue between 
Buddha and Animda) skips the categories of the " sis fields," and goes 
on fVom "name and material form" straight to the next following 
eatcgory of contact. {Vide infra.) 

t "Understanding" (mano) and " conseiousneaa " (viMSna) are always 
quite distinctinthe sacred texts, whererer they express tliemsclvea strictly. 
Turns aach as these : " What people are accustomed to call thought (citta) 
or tinderatanding (raano) or conaciousnesa {vinii4na) " occur, as far as 
1 know, only in such a connection that they may he described as an 
intentional accommodation to customary modes of speech. 



232 THE FOVItTH TO THE ELEVENTH LOfK. 

existence and realized by it, in the same way as visible 1 
before tlie eyes. 

The organs of the subject now step into communication with 
the objective world. "From the six fields comes contact. 
From contact comes sensation." We meet also with a 
certainly not very clearly expressed, and at the same time 
scarcely well-thought-out, attempt, to still further analyze these 
processes. Before the organ of sense grasps the object, an 
operation of the central organ, consciousness, on the organ of 
sense in requisition, giveait the command to join comoiunication 
with the object, apparently in such a way that tbe former 
sots tho latter in a certain manner to work. And when this 
communication follows, then by means of it, besides the two 
elements primarily concerned, the organ of sense and the 
object, tlio third element, consciousiiesB, the author and super- 
visor uf this communication, is at the same time in play. It is 
somewhat in this way, I believe, that we must understand the 
following proposition which recurs not unfrequently in the 
sacred texts : " From the eye and visible bodies comes 
consciousness, directed) to the eye (cakkhuvinnana), the 
conjunction of the three, the contact." And similarly in that 
address of Buddha's already quoted (p. 185 seq.), the series 
of ideas and processes treated of in this connection, is expressed 
in the following fashion : " Eye — body — consciousness directed 
to the eye — contact of the eye (with the objects) — the sensation, 
which arises from the contact of the eye (with the objects), be 
it pleasure be it pain, be it neither pain nor pleasure."* Of 
course similar processes take place in the case of the other 
organs of sense to those which occur in the case of the eye, 

* Fleaaarc, puiii, and what is neither pleasure nor pain : a cUssification 
of sensations under three heads found frequently repeatisd in the uorcd 
texts. 



TMntST—CLISGlXa. 23a 

The formula goes on : " From Benaation arises thirst." 
Here the point is reached, which the tenets of the origin and 
^e extinction of suffering had made a starting-point, " the thirst 
which leads from re-birth to re-birthj" not the ultimate bat 
the most powerful cause of suffering. We be, because we 
thirst for being; we suffer, because we thirst for pleasure. 
Whomsoever it holds in subjection, that thirst, that con- 
temptible thing, which pours its venom through the world, hia 
Bufieriug grows as the grass grows. Whosoever holds it in 
Bubjection, that thirst, that contemptible thing, which it is 
difficult to escape in this world, suffering falls off from him as 
the water-drops from the lotus flowers."* " As, if the root be 
nuinjured, even a hewn tree grows up anew mightily, so, if the 
excitement of thirst be not wholly dead, sufl'ering ever and 
anon breaks out again." " The gift of the truth transcends all 
other gifts; the sweetness of the truth transcends all other 
Bweetneas ; joy in the truth surpasses all other joy ; the 
extermination of thirst, this subdues all suffering." 

The idea of thirst, usually divided by scholastic teaching 
into six heads, according to whichever one or other of the six 
is that has caused the sensation which generates the 
thirst, is usually met in close connection with the category, 
which follows next in the formula of causaUty, that of chnging, 
to wit, chnging to the external world, to existence.! " From 

Shammapada," v. 335 acq. The folloTFiag quotations are taken 
from the Bame text, r. 338, 354. 

t Scholastic tenninology specially diatinguislaes four classes of clinging: 
clinging by dcBire, clinging bj (mistaken) intentions, clinging Lj building 
and monoBfic observances (as though these were alone sufficient 
to obtsin aalTation), and cliaging bj tliinking of the ego. We sludl not 
be able to explain tlie last point, the attitude of Buddliiat teaching aa to 
UiB idea of the ego, until we reach a later atage. 



231 TEE FOURTH TO TEE ELEVENTH LINK. 

thirst,'' says the formula, '' comes clinging.'' The Pfili word 
for ''clinging" (up&d4na) involves a metaphor which is highly 
descriptive of the idea which is here underlying. The flame 
which, as a scarcely material existence, freely urges its way on, 
spreading and rising, '' clings " still to the fuel •(up&d&na) : 
it cannot be contemplated without fuel. Even if the flame 
be carried into the distance by the wind, there is still a 
fuel there to which it clings, the wind. The existence of every 
being is like the flame ; like the flame, our being is to a certain 
extent a continuous process of burning. Deliverance is the 
extinction (nirvana) of the flame; but the flame is not 
extinguished so long as it is supplied with fuel to which it 
'' clings." And as the flame clinging to the wind presses on 
into &r off distance, so also the flame of our existence is not 
laid on the spot, but presses on in transmigration to &r off 
distances, from heaven to hell, from hells to heaven. What is 
it, to which the flame-resembling process of our being clings 
in the moment of such transmigration, like the flame to the 
wind ? *' Then, say I, (the being of the existent) has thirst as 
the substratum to which it clings; for this thirst, O Vaccha, ia 
at that time (at the moment of transmigration) its (the being's) 
clinging."* 

Even the slightest residue of clinging prevents deliverance. 
Whosoever separates from everything that is transitory, who- 

* Erom a dialogue between Buddha and a monk of another persuasion 
named Yaccha ("Samyntta Nik&ya," vol. ii, fol. tan). Here, may be 
seen an illnstration of the disconnectedness of the sacred texts abready 
animadverted on, as regards the succession of the categories appearing in 
the formula of causality. We pointed out, that the proposition " from 
consciousness come name and material form " refers to the moment of 
conception, that is of transmigration of the soul. And here the categories 
of thirst and clinging, which appear much later in the formula, are 
carried back to the very same moment. 



BEOOMTSa— BIRTH AST) DEATH. 



235 



floerer attains the most perfect qnietnde, bnt clings with his 
thought even to this very qnietnde and is glad of this quietude) 
ho is still in hondage. The best, bnt still the minimum of 
clinging ia the clinging to the condition of deepest self- 
suppreesion where conaciousuesa and non-conaciousnesa are 
alike overcome ; complete deliverance has overcome even this 
last clinging.* "By the cessation of clinging his soul was 
delivered from all sinful existence " — this is the standing 
phrase with which the texts intimate that a disciple of Buddha 
has become a partaker of holiness, of deliverance. 

Up to this point the connection, of the causes and effects in 
our chain of categories was tolerably clear. The impression 
will have been formed that the being whose conception (" from 
consciousness come name and materia! form ") was the starting- 
point of the serieSj has long since, in the later terms of the 
formula, entered on real life, struggles with the outer world, 
the clinging to its goods. In this light also the oft-mentioned 
dialogue between Buddha and Ananda puts it ; to the pro- 
position ; " from sensation comes thirst," it appends a picture 
of human toil and struggles for pleasure and gain : there are 
met the words seek, obtain, possession, guard, envy, quarrel, 
strife, backbiting, lying. It is therefore very surprising, when 
the formula of causality, which in its theory of the world 
seemed to have already arrived at the dealings of social life, 
at the struggle of egoism against egoism, suddenly turns back 
and causes that being whom we have already seen taking part 
in the transactiona of the world to be born. Tho formula runs 
thus in its three last terms : " From clinging (to existence) 
comes becoming (bhava); from becoming comes birth j from 
birth come old age, and death, pain and lamentation, : 
anxiety and despair." 

* " AnanjasappiLja Suttanta " (Mnjjh. N.). 



23C THE FOURTH TO THE ELEVENTH LISK. 

It seoma to me evident that there ia here a gap in the train 
of thought which our efforts of elucidation cannot, and are not 
even permitted to bridge over. Wtat was more ready than 
to recognize in birth the sources from which come old age and 
deaih ? "If three things were not in the world, my diaciplea, 
the Perfect One, the holy, supreme Buddha, would not 
appear in the world, the Law and the Doctrine, which the 
Perfect One propounds, would not shine in the world. What 
three things are they ? Birth and old age and death."* Thus 
these BO closely associated ideas were thrown together in the 
two last terms of the causal-chain, but it was omitted to weld 
these new groups of categories with those preceding, so as to 
form a harmonious whole. The idea of " becoming," which 
was thrust into the middle, inevitably creates by its very 
vagnenessf — which yon may regard as you like, as either of 
very little or of very great import — the impression as if it 
were intended for a shift or sleight to get over the break in 
continuity. 

We close with some proverbs of the " Dhammapada," J which 
translate these last terms of the formula of causality from the 
language of ideas into that of emotion and poetry. 

"Behold this painted picture, tho frail, scarred form of 
corporeity, wherein many an aspii-ation dwells, which has no 
happiness and no stability." 

" To age comes as its lot this form, frail, a nest of diseases : 
the perishable body fails : life in it is death." 

* Tide supra, p. 217. 

t This ia not removed bj the espliDation frequently occurring in the 
sacred testa, that there is a, triple becoming : the becominE m desire, the 
becoming in form, the becoming in formlesanesa, according as a being is 
bom again in the lower worlds ruled by desire, or in the higher states, 
the worlds of form and formlesaneas. 

1 Vers 147-149, 46. 



lamitANCE. 2 

" Those bleached bonea, which are thrown oat yonder like 
gonrds in the aatnmn — when anyone Bees them, how can he 
be happy ? " 

"Esteeming this body liko a bubble, regarding it as a 
mirage, breaking the flower-shafts of the tempter, press on to the 
bonme where the monarch Death shall gaze no more on thee." 

Bat death is not the end of the long chain of snfiering : upon 
death follows re-birth, new sorrow, another death. 

The Ficst asd Secoiid Links of the Caitsal-chain. 

From the end of the formnla of causahty we must turn back 
to its beginning, to apeak of the two first members of the 
series. 

"From ignorance (avijjfi)," the formnla begins, "come 
conformations (aankhfira). 

" From conformations comos coneciousnesa." 

If ignorance be designated the ultimate source of suffering, 
the qnestion must arise : Who is here the ignorant ? What 
is that of which this ignorance is ignorant ? 

It is tempting, by the place assigned to the category of 
" ignorance," at the beginning of the whole hue of cansality, 
to allow one's self to be carried away by interpretations which 
Bee in this idea, as it were, a cosmogonical power working 
at the primitive foundation of things. Or one might be 
tempted to read in it the history of a crime preceding all 
time, an nnlucky act by which the noa-beent had doomed 
itself to be heent, that is to suffer. The philosophy of later 
Brahmanical schools speaks in similar fashion of Mflyft, that 
power of delusion, which causes the deceptive picture of the 
created world to appear to the One, the uncreated, as if it 
were heent. "He, the knowing, gave himself np to confused 



238 TEE FIRST AND SECOND LINKS. 

fencies, and when he fell into the slumber prepared for him by 
' M&y&^ he beheld in amazement multiform dreams : I am, this 
is my father, this my mother, this my field, this my kingdom/^ 
Some have compared the ignorance of Buddhism with this 
M&y& of the Brahmanical theosophy; only with this note 
that, as Md,y& is the deceptive reflection of the true everlasting 
heent, so ignorance is the reflection of that which, as they 
thought, took the place of the everlasting beent for the 
Buddhists, that this, the Nothing. 

Interpretations of this kind, which find in the category of 
ignorance an expression for the deceptive Nothing appearing 
as a beenty completely correspond in fact with the explicit 
utterances of later Buddhist texts. The construction alluded 
to is met with in the great standard text-book of mystic- 
nihilistic speculation, which was an authority among Buddhist 
theologians in the first century after Christ. In this most 
sacredly esteemed text, the '* Perfection of Knowledge'^ 
(Prajnap&ramita), we read as follows : — * 

Buddha said to S&riputra : ^^ Things, O S&riputra, do not 
exist as ordinary and ignorant men, clinging closely to them, 
fancy, who are not instructed on the subject." S&riputra 
said : *' How then, sire, do they exist ? " Buddha answered : 
^' They exist, O SSriputra, in so far that they do not exist 
in truth. And inasmuch as they do not exist, they are 
called AvidyA, that is, the non-existent, or ignorance.f To 
this ordinary, ignorant men, who are not instructed on the 
matter> cling closely. They represent to themselves all things, 
of which in truth not one has any existence, as existent.^' 

* The passage is quoted by Bomoufy " Introduction a HuBtoire du 
Buddhisme indien," p. 473 seq. 478. 

f This is the same term which occurs at the beginning of the ^nrnuls 
of causality (avidya = Pill, avijja). 



laKOBM'CE. 289 

lea Buddha asks the holy disciple Subhfiti : " What thinkest 

lU noWj Subhfiti, is illusion one thing and material form 

lother ? Is illusion one thing and eensationa another ? 

trceptions another? conformations another? consciousness 

'another ? " Sobhilti answered : " Nay, Master, nay ; illusion 

is not one thing and material £orm another. iMaterial form 

is itself the illusion and the illusion itself is material form, 

sensations, perceptions, conformations, and consciousness." And 

Buddba says : " It is in the nature of the illusion that that hes 

which makes beings what they are. It is, O Subhuti, as if 

a clever magician, or the pupil of a clever magician, caused a 

vast concourse of men to appear at a cross road, where four 

great thoronghfarea meet, and, having caused them to appear, 

nsed them again to vanish." 

Thns the speculations contained in the treatise on the 
Perfection of Knowledge," make ignorance the ultimate 
inse of the appearing of the world and at the same time 
essential character of its state of being, which is in trath 
tther not-being : ignorance and not-being here coincide. 
We have taken this glance at this later phase of the develop- 
pent of Buddhist thought merely with the intention of being 
.t on our guard against assigning any of these ideas to 
icient Buddhism and against framing any interpretation of 
le old texts, especially of the formula of causahty, influenced 
ly snch a process. Inquirers, who had access to the propositions 
the chain of causes and effects only in the garb of that 
ter period, found themselves in fact in a not very different 
isition from that in which a historian of Christianity would 
1 placed, if bo were directed to string together some account 
the teaching of Jesns from the phantasms of the Gnostics. 
The course, which we must follow, is clearly enough indi- 
we have only to iuc[uiro from the oldest tradition of 



240 THE FIRST AND SEOOIW LINKS. 

Buddhist dogmatics, obtainable in the P&li tezts^ what is thai 
ignorance^ the ultimate ground of all su£Permg. 

Wherever in the sacred * Pfili literature this question is 
mooted, as well in the addresses which Buddha himself and 
his chief disciples are said to have delivered^ as in the systema- 
tizing compilations of a later generation of dogmatists^ the 
answer is invariably the same. The ignorance is not declared 
to be anything in the way of a cosmic power, nor anything 
like a mysterious original sin, but it is within the range of 
earthly, tangible reality. The ignorance is the ignorance of 
the four sacred truths. S&riputta says :* '^ Not to know sufEer- 
ing, friend, not to know the origin of suflFering, not to know 
the extinction of suffering, not to know the path to the extinction 
of suffering : this, friend, is called ignorance.'' '^ Not seeing 
the four sacred truths as they are, I have wandered on 
the long path from one birth to another. Now have I 
seen them: the current of being is stemmed. The root of 
suffering is destroyed : there is henceforward no re-birth.''t 

The method and procedure of old-Buddhist dogmatic is here 
clearly exemplified : when it tracks personality back on its 
way through the world of sorrow beyond that moment when 
consciousness clothes itself with '^ name and material form,'^ 
that is, to the moment of conception, their thought is not on 
that account lost in the arcanum of pre-existence prior to 
all consciousness, but it makes this empirical existence take 
root in another equally empirical conceivable existence. That 
ignorance, which is stated to be the ultimate ground of your 
present state of being, involves that, at an earlier date, a being 
who then occupied your place, a being who has lived in not 

* " Sammadittliisuttanta " (Majjhima Nikaya). Similar passages occur 
frequently. 
t " Mahavagga," yi, 29. 



IGNORANCE AKD OOlfFORMATIOSS. 



3il 



leas tangible reality than you now do, on earth or in a heaTen . 
or in a hellj has failed to possess a specific knowledge, 
definable in certain words, and bound for that reason in 
the bonds of transmigration, must have brought about your 
present state of being. Wo saw (p. 52) that old-Brahman 
epecnlation, in reply to tho question, what is the power which 
holds the spirit bound in impermanence, what enemy must 
be overcome in order that deliverance may be obtained, has 
answered with the very same conception, that of ignorance. 
With the Brahmans this ignorance was the ignorance of the 
identity of the particular ego with that great ego, which ia the 
source and the sum of all egoity. Buddhism has given up 
these thoughts and all metaphysical hypotheses which rendered 
them possible, hut still the word proved itself more lasting 
than the thought : now, as before, the ultimate root of all 
suffering continues to be called "ignorance." And there it 
was natural, when inquiry was made as to the iilatent 
import of tliis idea of " ignorance," it should be described as 
non-possession of that knowledge, the possession of which 
appeared to the Buddhist the highest aim of every struggle for 
deliverance, the knowledge of suffering, of the origin of suffer- 
ing, of tho extinction of suffering, and of the path to the 
extinction of suffering. The ultimate root of all suffering is the 
delusion which conceals from man the true being and the true 
value of the system of the universe. Being is suffering : but 
ignorance totally deceives us as to this suffering ; it causes us 
to see instead of suffering a phantom of happiness and pleasure. 

And the next consequence of this delusion ? Tho formula of 
causality expresses it in its first proposition : " From ignorance 
come conformations (Sankhara)." 

Here the impossibility of Buddhist terminology finding 
adequate expression in our language makes itself keenly felt. 

IG 



242 THE FIRST AND SECOND LINKS. 

The word Sankhfira is derived from a verb which signifies 
to arrange^ adorn^ prepare. Sankh&ra is both the preparation 
and that prepared; bat these two coincide in Baddhist 
conceptions much more than in ours^ for to the Buddhist mind 
— we shall have more to say on this point later on — ^the made 
has existence only and solely in the process of being made ; 
whatever is^ is not so much a something which is^ as the process 
rather of a beings self-generating and self-again-consuming 
being. Now, nothing can be imagined at any time any how 
coming under observation in this world of becoming and 
decease, to which the idea of forming or of becoming formed 
does not attach, and thus we shall farther on meet with the 
word Sankh&ra as one of the most general expressions for 
everything that is in it. In our formula, however, which has 
not to do with the universe, but with the origin and decease of 
personal life, the idea of Sankh&ra suitable to the connection 
is a much narrower one : here a forming is meant which is 
consummated in the domain of the personal body-cum-spirit 
existence. We might translate Sankh&ra directly by '^ actions,'* 
it* we understand this word in the wide sense in which it 
includes also at the same time the internal ^' actions,^' the will 
and wish. The old scholastic teachers divide ^^ conformations'* 
or " actions " under two heads, always in three classes, either 
viewing them as corresponding to the three categories of thought, 
word, and deed, or proceeding on the basis of a moral principle 
of division, into conformations which have a pure end in view 
(good actions), those which have an impure end in view, and 
those which have a neutral end in view. "Pate** and ^^ impure,*' 
in the language of Indian theology, are nothing more than 
moral merit, which will be rewarded hereafter, and guilt, 
which finds its punishment hereafter. Thus the category of 
*^ conformations** brings us to the doctrine of E^amma, i.e., 



KAilMA {MORAL BETRIBDTIOS). 213 

tte law of moral retribution, wMch traces oab fortha wandering 
sonl its path tlirongli the ivorld of earthly being, through 
heaven and hell. 

What we are, is the fnut of that which wo have done. As an 
acquisition of pre-Buddhist spoculatiou we have already come 
acTOSS the proposition ; " whatsoever he does, to a corresponding 
state he attains;"* and Buddhism teaches : " My action is my 
possession, my action is my inheritance, my action la the womb 
which bears me. My action is the race to which I am akin, 
my action is my refuge."t What appears to man to be hia 
body ia in truth " the action of his past state, which then 
assuming a form, realized through his endeavour, has become 
endowed with a tangible e."tistence."J The law of causality, 
Babstantially regarded by Buddhist speculation as a natural 
law, here assumes the form of a moral power influencing the 
universe. No man can escape the effect of his actions. " Not 
in the heavens," it is said in the Dhammapadaj^ " not in the 
midst of the sea, not if thou hidest thyself away in the clefts of 
the mountains, wilt thou find a place on earth where thou canst 
escape the fruit of thy evil actions." |1 " Him, who has been long 

' Vide supra, p. 49. 

■ " Anguttara Nikuya," Pancata Nipata. 
I " Sainyntta ITikaya," vol. i, fol. jhe'. 
§ YeraoB 127, 219 seq. 

(1 He who obtains deliverance doea not thereliy escape punishment for 
the evil which Le has not yet expiated. Yet this punishment asaunics a 
a for the delivered, in which none of its terrors remain foe them. The 
J of the robber Angulim4!a gives an illustration. Tliia man, who 
le countless deeds of robbery and ranrder, is eonverted 
(y Bnddha and obtains sanctity. When he goes into the city of Savatthi 
o collect alms, he EUHtoins injuries from the populace by b tone -thro wing 
Ukd the hurling oE otlier objects at him. Covered with blood, with 
broken alms-bowl and torn garments, be comes to Buddha. Tbe latter 
mjt to him : " Seest thou not, O Brahman P The reword of evil actions, 

16* 



244 THE FIRST AND SECOND LINKS. 

travelKng and who returns home in safety, the welcome of 
relatives, friends and acquaintances, awaits. So him, who 
has done good works, when he passes over from this world into 
the hereafter, his good works welcome, like relatives a home- 
returning friend/' Through the five regions of transmigration, 
through divine and human existence, and through the realms of 
goblins, of animal-life and hells, the power of our actions leads 
us. The exaltation of heaven awaits the good. The warders of 
hell bring up the wicked before the throne of king Yama ; who 
asks him, whether he, when he lived on earth, did not see the 
five messengers of the gods who are sent for the admonition of 
men, the five visions of human weakness and human suflFering ; 
the^ child, the old man, the sick man, the (Criminal suffering 
punishment, and the dead man. Of course he has seen them. 
^^ And hast thou, man, when thou reachedst riper years and 
becamest old, not thought within thyself : ' I also am subject 
to birth, old age, and death; I am not exempt from the 
dominion of birth, old age, and death. Well, then ! I will do 
good in thought, word and deed V '' But he answers : '' I was 
unable to do it, sire; I neglected it, sire, in my frivolity.'' 
Then king Yama addresses him : ^^ These thy evil deeds thy 
mother hath not done, nor thy father, nor thy brother, nor thy 
sister, nor thy friends and advisers, nor thy connections and 
blood-relations, nor ascetics, nor Brahmans, nor gods. It is 
thou alone that hast done these evil actions ; thou alone shalt 
gather their fruit." And the warders of hell drag him to the 
places of torment. He is riveted to glowing iron, plunged in 

for which thou shouldst otherwise have had to sufEer for long years and 
many thousands of years in hell, that thou art now receiving already in 
this life/* (Angalimala Suttanta, Majjh. Nikaya. The extract given in 
Hardy's Manual, p. 260 seq., does not folly meet the theological points of 
the narrative.) 



KAMMA ASD OOSFORMATIONS. S 

glowing seas of blood, or tortured on mountaina of burning 
coals, and lie dies not until tbe very last residue of his guilt 
lias been expiated.* 

It is quite in keeping with the spirit of the old dogmatic, 
when a later testf compares the cycle of ever-recurring 
exiatence, connected throughout by Kamuia, by merit and 
demerit, to a whool which recoils upon itself, or with the 
reciprocal generation of the tree from the seed, of the seed 
com from the fruit of the tree, of the hen from the egg, and of 
the egg from the hen. Eye and ear, body and spirit, move 
into contact with the external world; thus arises sensation, 
desire, action (kamma) ; the fruit of the action is the new eye, 
and the new ear, the new body and the new spirit, which will 
go to make up the being in the coming exiatence. 

It is this gi-oup of thoughts, associated with the idea of 
Kamma, which we must next take up in order to render 
intelligible the role which the category of the Sankharaa playa 
in the formula of causality. Yet the sacred texts point also to 
another more distinct interpretation of this categoiy, which lies 
somewhat in another direction. 

In one of the great collections of Badilha'a addresses, we 
meet a sermon " on re-birth according to the Hankh&raB."| 
Now this very " re-birth according to the Sankhiraa " is that 
with which the formula of causality has to do at the place, 
where we are now arrived, for this formula speaks here 
precisely of the Sankharas, in so far as they cause the con- 
sciousness of the dying being to become the germ of a new 
being ("from the Sankh3.ra3 comes consciousness. From 
conBcionsness come name and material form "). We are thus 
entitled to expect in the expositions of this Sutra a cora- 



' Devadfita Satta. 1 

J Sankharuppati Suttanta 



" Miliiida Panha," seq., etc. 
n tlie Majjhima ^ikfLja. 



24G FIRST AND SECOND lilNKS. 

mehtary upon this part of the formula of causality: and in 
fact we find it. 

It runs as follows : — 

« It happens, my disciples, that a monk, endowed with faith, 
endowed with righteousness, endowed with knowledge of the 
doctrine, with resignation, with wisdom, communes thus with 
himself : ^ Now then, could I, when my body is dissolved in 
death, obtain re-birth in a powerful, princely family/ He thinks 
this thought, dwells on this thought, cherishes this thought. 
These Sankharas and internal conditions (vih&r&), which he has 
thus cherished within him and fostered, lead to his re-birth in 
such an existence. This, disciples, is the avenue, this the 
path, which leads to re-birth in such an existence.'' 

The train of thought is then similarly repeated in detail 
with reference to the several classes of men and gods. The 
believing and righteous monk, who has in his lifetime directed 
his thoughts and wishes to these forms of existence, will be 
re-born in them. So on up to the highest classes of gods, who 
are separated from Nirvana by a diminishing residuum of the 
earthly, the ^^ gods of the spheres, in which there is neither 
perception nor absence of perception.'' And finally, in the last 
place, the SAtra speaks of the monk " who thus reflects : 'Now 
then, were I but able by the destruction of sinful existence, to 
discover and behold for myself the sinless state of deliverance 
in action and in knowledge even in this present life, and find in 
it my abode.' He will, by the destruction of sinful existence, 
discover and behold for himself the sinless state of deliverance 
in action and in knowledge even in this present life, and will 
find in it his abode. This monk, disciples, will never be 
re-born." 

We see what are here the Sankh&ras, which have a 
decisive influence on the re-birth of man : the inner form of 



CONFORMATIONS Am) RE-BIRTH. 2il 

the spirit, which anon readily contents itself with the aspira- 
tions of the spheres of earthly greatness, raises itself anon with 
purer energy to the worlds of the gods, even to the highest 
altitudes, and soars in re-birth to existenee actually in these 
altitudes. Still, however, son'ow pushes even into the most 
exalted regions. The wise man, therefore, aspires neither to 
human nor divine happiness; his self -forming directs itself 
only to the cessation of all conformations. The ignorant, on 
the contrary, led astray by hes, ignorance of the suffering of 
all states of being, becomes a settler in the world of imperma- 
nence. As the fuel will not permit the flame to be extinguishedj 
BO this inner forming of one's self, this hankering after an 
impermanent object, holds the dying being fast bound to 
existence. The spirit clothes itself with a new garment of 
name and material form, and in a new existence repeats the 
old cycle of birth and old age, of sorrow and death. 

Being and Becoming, — Substahce abd Oonjokmation, 
Wo have attempted to explain the several elements of tho 
line of caosaUty : it remains for us, viewing it as a whole, to 
point out what view of the structure of being, if the expression 
be admissible, what answer to the question : what it amounts to, 
and what is implied by, anything being stated to be, is given in 
the formula itself and in the elsewhere -occurring utterances 
connected therewith in the Buddhist texts. First of all, how- 
ever, we must here insert a proviso : we have only to deal with 
that which in this material transient realm of things, in which 
we live, constitutes being. The question whether there ia 
for Buddhism, beyond this form of being, another realm 
of life, existing under peculiar laws, whether there is beyond 
the temporal an everlasting, cannot jet be grappled. 
As a suitable starting-point for our inqoii^y 



248 BEING AND BECOMINQ— SUBSTANCE AND CONFORMATION. 

discourse pat into Buddha^s moath in sacred tradition^ 
concerning the reflections by which a monk striving for 
deliverance is led to dissociation from joy and pain. It is 
therein recorded :— 

''In this monk^ disciples^ who thus guards himself and 
rules his consciousness, who is immovably intent thereon in 
holy effort and is steadfast in self-culture, there arises a 
sensation of pleasure. Then he knows as follows : ' In me 
has arisen this pleasurable sensation ; this has arisen from a 
cause, not without a cause. Where lies this cauge ? It lies 
in this body of mine. But this body of mine is impermanent, 
has become (or, been formed), been produced by causes. A 
pleasurable sensation, the cause of which lies in the imper- 
manent, originated, cause-produced body, how caa it be 
permanent V Thus, as well with regard to the body as 
to the pleasurable sensation, he commits himself to the 
contemplation of impermanence, transitoriness, evanition, 
renunciation, cessation, resignation. While he commits 
himself tp the contemplation of impermanence, etc., as well 
with regard to the body as to the pleasurable sensation, he 
desists from all yearning propensity based on the body and 
on pleasurable sensation/' 

He who is not repelled by the tedious minuteness of this 
discursive style, will here find a view very important for the 
thought- fabric of Buddhism: the association of the imper- 
manent and transitory with that which is produced by an 
operation of causality. Causality, or, to translate more 
accurately the Indian word (paticcasamuppada), the origin (of 
one thing) in dependence (from another thing), represents a 

* " Samyuttaka NiklLya," vol. ii, fol. jhu of the Phayre MS. 
t Later on follows an exactly identical soliloquy regarding painful 
sensations, and sensations which are neither pleasurable nor painfiiL 



CAUSJMTT—BEJSa ASD NOK-BEim. 243 

vlation existing bebween two members, of wHcb tlie one, and 
186 o£ it necessarily the other, is at no moment unaltered. 
Phere is no being subject to the law of cansality, that does not 
esolve itself, when analyzed, into a process of self- changing, 
becoming. In the continuous oscillation, ruled by the 
itural law of causality, between being and not-being, consists 
}one the reabty of the things which mate up the contents of 
i world. " This world, Kacc&na," aa we read,* " generally 
iceeda on a duality, on the 'it is ' and the ' it is not.' But, 
J Kaccana, whoever percei^'es in trnth and wisdom how things 
irigtnate in the world, in his eyes there is no ' it is not ' in this 
rorld. Whoever, KaccAna, perceives ia truth and wisdom how 
lungs pass away in this world, in bis eyes there is no ' it is * in 
. world. . . Sorrow alone arises where anything arises ; 
lorrow passes away where anything passes away. 'Everything 
this is the one extreme, KaecfLna. 'Everything is not/ 
9iis is the other extreme. The Perfect One, Kaccfl.na, 
imaining far from both these extremes, proclaims the truth in 
le middle: 'From ignorance come conformations"' — and here 
illows the wording of the formula of causaUty. The world ia 
Le world's process, the formula of causality is the expression 
tf this process of the world, or at least of that side of the 
process with which alone man, bound in sorrow and seeking 
ieliverance, has anything to do. The conviction of an absolute 
iw, which rules the world's process expressed in this formula, 
leservee to be set out in bold relief as one of the most essential 
Omenta of the body of Buddhist thought.f 

• " Sainyuttaka Kikfi.ya," vol. i, fol. dii. 

1" In another department, aa may here be ineidentally remarked, there 
eTineed this same tlioroughly rationalistic mode of thought of Buddhism 
. its interesting attempts to explain on tbe principle of cause and con- 

Kqneitce,llie origin oftlie state and classes (A^gauiia3utta,DIgha^'ikaja). 

Of a primeval diffurence of castes, rooted in mystic depths, as Bralimanism 



250 BEma AND BECOmSQ^SUBSTASCE AND CONFOBMATIOX. 

Things or substances, in the sense of a something existing 
by itself, as we are accnstomed to understand these words, 
cannot, according to all we have stated, be at all thought of by 
Buddhism. As the most general expression for those things, 
the mutual relation of which the formula of causality explains, 
the being of which, one might almost say, is their standing in 
that mutual relation, the language of the Buddhists has two 
terms : Dhamma* and Sankh&ra : we may give an approximate 
rendering of them by *' order '* and ''formation'' (p. 247). 
Both designations are really synonymous; both include the 
idea that, not so much something ordered, a something formed, 
as rather a self-ordermg, a self-forming, constitutes the subject- 
matter of the world ; with both there is inseparably associated 
in the feeling of the Buddhist the thought that every ordor 
must give place to another order, and every formation to 
another formation. Bodily as well as spiritual evolutions, all 
sensations, all perceptions, all conditions, everything that is, 
i.e., all that passes, is a Dhamma, a Sankh&ra. While older 
speculation had confined all being to the Atman, the great 
unchangeable ''V it was now laid down as a fundamental 

regarded it, we do not now speak. In old times beings possessed the 
rice, on which they lived, in common. Later on they divided it among 
them. One being encroached on the share of another. The others at first 
punished the evil-doer on their own responsibilify. Then they resolved : 
" We desire to appoint one being, who shall reprimand for ns him who 
deserves reprimand, censure him who deserves censore, banish him 
who deserves banishment ; therefore we desire to give him a share of oar 
rice." Thus was the first king chosen on earth. The origin of the 
priestly class is described in similar fiishion. 

* The word Dhamma (Sansk. dharma, in the oldest form dhazman), 
" order, law," nsnally signifies in Buddhist terminology ** essence, idea," 
in so far as the essence of anything constitutes its own immanefnt law. 
Thus the word is also used as the most general designation of the doctrine 
or truth preached by Buddha. 



DHAMMA—SANEHAeA. 251 

pr(^K>sition : all Dhammas are " not-I "* (aa-atta, Sanek. 
au-fttman) ;t they are all transitory. Time after time tbo 
words ottered by the god Indra when Buddha eutei'ed Nirvfina. 
recur in the sacred texts : " Impermanent truly are the Sank- 
Mrs8> liable to origination and decease ; as they arose so thoy 
pass away; their disappearance is happiness." 

Some have expressed the difference between the Brahman 
and the Bnddhist conceptions of the osistence of things, as 
if, of the component parts which together form the idea of 
becoming (being and not-being), the former had laid hold of 
tlie idea of being only, and the latter of non-being only. We 
prefer to avoid every expression which would mal:e Buddhism 
regard non-being aa the true substance of things, and to 
express ourselves thus. Tho speculation of the Brahtnans 
apprehended being in all becoming, that of the Buddhists 
becoming in all apparent being. In the former case aabstanco 
withont causabty, in the latter causality without substance. 

Where the sources lie, from which this causality derives its 
taoction and its power. Buddhism does not ask. It is as little 

• ir.B. — It is not siiid, " there is no ego," bnt merely : " the Dhammas 
— I.e., all things which go to make up the contents of this world — are 



t Veraea 277-279 of the "Dhammapada " are yetj significant as tho most 
general expression of tliese propositious. In them at the same time the 
tynonymousneaa of Dhamma and SanihAra b characteristicaUy evidenced. 
In the two first of these three exactly similarly constructed verses mention 
ia made of the Banldifira ; in. the tliird verse, where a syllable must be 
enrtailed for metrical reaaons, Dhamma is used instead of Snnkhara : 

" All Santh&ras are impennanent ; when he perceives this in truth, he 
turns from sorrow ; ibis is the path of purity. 

" All SaukLaraa are full of sorrow : when he perceives this in troth, he 
tnms from sorrow ; tliia ia the path of purity. 

"All Dhammas are non-ego : when he perceives this in truth, ho tnms 
from sorrow ; this is the path of purity." 



252 THE SOUL. 

concerned whether the world was created by a god, or whether 
it was evolved by an absolute substance or by a creative natural 
sub-stratum out of its own interior. He accepts its presence 
and the working of the law of the world as facts. Should any 
one wish to express, though by no means in full accord with 
Buddhist habits of thought, what is the absolute within this 
domain of impermanence — we should, perhaps, rather say the 
most absolute — ^he might name as such the controlling law of 
the universe, that of causality. Where there is no being, but 
only becoming, it is not a substance, but only a law, which can 
be recognized as the first and the last. 

A beginning of time from which the working of this law takes 
effect, and a limit of space, which encloses the world in which 
it operates, cannot be discovered. Is there in &ct no such 
limit ? '' This has the Exalted One not revealed.'' " dis- 
ciples, think not such thoughts as the world thinks: ^The 
world is everlasting, or the world is not everlasting. The 
world is finite, or the world is not finite.' . . . If ye think, 
O disciples, thus think ye : ' This is suffering ; ' thus think ye : 
'This is the origin of suffering; ' thus think ye : ' This is the 
extinction of suffering ; ' thus think ye : ' This is the path to 
the extinction of suffering.' "* 



The Soul. 

It is only now, in this connection, that we are in a position 
to thoroughly understand a much-talked-of dogma of Buddhism: 
the negation of soul. 

It is not incorrect to say that Buddhism disaffirms the 
existence of soul, but this cannot be understood in a sense 



# «< 



Sainyutta N.," toI. iii, fol. ky&. 



TBE SOUL. 

which would in any way give this thought a materialistic 
stamp. It might be said with equal propriety that Buddhiam 
denies the existence of the body. The body, as well as the 
Boal, exists only as a complex of manifold iuter-connected 
origination and decease; but neither body nor soul has 
existence as a self-contained substance, sustaining itself jjer 
w. Sensations, perceptions, and all those processes which 
make up the inner life, crowd upon one another in motley 
variety; in the centre of this changing plurality Btands 
eonsciouaneas (viiiiiiliia), which, if the body bo compared to 
a state, may be spoken of as the ruler of this state.* But 
consciousness is not essentially different from perceptions and 
sensations, the comings and goings of which it at the same 
time superintends and regulates : it is also a Sankh^ra, and 
like all other Sankharaa it is changeable and without substance. 
We mnst here divest ourselves wholly of all customary juodea 
of thinking. We arc accustomed to realize our inner life as 
a comprehensible factor, only when wo "are allowed to refer its 
changing ingredients, every individual fcehng, every distinct 
act of the will, to one and an ever identical ego, but this mode 
of thinking is fundamentally opposed to Buddhism. Here as 
everywhere it condemns that fixity which we are prone to give 
to the current of incidents that como and go by conceiving 
a substance, to or in which they might happen. A seeing, 
a hearing, a conceiving, above all a suffering, takes place : but 

• " Samyutta Nilaya." to!, ii, fol. jo ; " MilindapauLa," p. 63. — 
Compare also the following passage, often repeated in the Bacrcd texts 
(e.j7.iiithc"8amannapliaia8utta"): "This is my body, the material, framed 
out of the four elements, begotten by my father and mother . . . ,but 
that is my eonaciousness, which ctinga firmly thereto, is joined to it. Like- 
a precious stone, beautiful and valuable, octahedral, well polished, clear 
and pure, adorned with all perfection, to which a string ia attached, blue 
or yellow, red or white, or a yellowish band," &c. 



254: THE SOUL. 

ab. existence^ which may be regarded as the seer, the hearer, 
the sufferer, is not recognized in Buddhist teaching. 

It may be allowable in this place to go beyond the range of 
the sacred texts, and here insert those very clear expressions 
which we find on this group of problems in a later and in many 
respects exceedingly remarkable dialogue, the ^^ Questions of 
Milinda.^' In the centuries which followed Alexander's 
invasion of India, which was so highly important an event in 
Indian history — ^in those times, the traces of which meet our 
eyes in the Greek coins struck in India, and the half-Hellenic 
figures of ancient Buddhist reliefs — ^there cannot but have 
been in the Indus territory meetings of argumentative Greeks 
with Indian monks and dialecticians, and Buddhist literature 
has preserved one record of such encounters in that dialogue, 
which bears the name of the Yavana king Milinda, that is, the 
Ionian or Greek prince Menander (ca. 100 b.c). 

EjDg Milinda"*^ says to the great saint N&gasena: ''How 
art thou known, venerable sire ; what is thy name, sire ? '' 

The saint repUes : '^ I am named N&gasena, great king; 
but Nagasena, great king, is only a name, an appellation, 
a designation, an epithet, a mere word; here there is no 
subject/' 

Then said the king Milinda : '^ Well to be sure ! let only 
the five hundred Yavanas and the eighty thousand monks 
hear it : this Nfi-gasena says : ^ Here there is no subject/ 
Can anyone assent to this ? '' 

And king Milinda went on to say to the venerable N&gasena : 
"If, O venerable NS,gasena, there is no subject, who is it 
then that provides you with what you need, clothes and food, 
lodging and medicine for the sick ? Who is it that enjoys all 

* " Milindapauha," p. 25 seq. I take the liberty of omitting a few 
tumecessary repetitions in my translation. 



THE 80UL. 255 

these tlimgs ? Who walks in virtues ? Who expends labour 
upon himself ? Who attains the path and the fruits of holiness ? 
Who attains Nirvfina F Who kills ? Who steals ? Who walks 
in pleasures ? Who deceives ? Who drinks ? Who commits 
the five deadly sins ? Thus there is then no good and no evil ; 
there is no doer and no originator of good and evil actions ; 
good action «id evil action bring no reward and bear" no fruit. 
If anyone were to kill thee, venerable Ndgasena, even he 
would commit no murder. 

'' Sire, are the hairs Nagasena ? ^' 

'' No, great king/' 

" Are nails or teeth, skin or flesh or bone Nagasena ? '' 

" No, great king/' 

'^ Is the bodily form Ndgasena, sire ? '' 

'' No, great king/' 

" Are the sensations Ndgasena ? " 

*' No, great king." 

'^ Are the perceptions, the conformations, the consciousness 
Nftgasena ? " 

'^ No, great king." 

" Or, sire, the combination of corporeal form, sensations, 
perceptions, conformations, and consciousness, is this N&ga- 
sena?" 

'' No, great king." 

" Or, sire, apart from the corporeal form, and the sensations, 
the perceptions, conformations, and consciousness, is there 
a N&gasena ? " 

'^ No, great king." 

*' Wherever I look then, sire, I nowhere find a Nagasena. 
A mere word, sire, is Nfi-gasena. What is Nagasena then? 
Thou speakest false then, sire, and thou hest; there is no 
Nagasena." 



j56 TEE SOUL. 

Then spoke the venerable N&gasena to king Milinda thus : 
'^Thoa art accastomed^ great king^ to all the comfort of a 
princely life^ to the greatest comfort. If then, great king, 
thou goest out on foot at midday on the hot earth, on the 
burning sand, and treadest on the sharp stones, gravel, and 
sand, thy feet are hurt ; thy body is fatigued, thy mind upset ; 
there arises a consciousness of a bodily condition associated 
with dislike. Hast thou come on foot or on a chariot ? " 

^'I do not travel on foot, sire : I have come on a chariot." 

'^ If thou hast come on a chariot, great king, then define the 
chariot. Is the pole the chariot, great king ? " 

And now the saint turns the same course of reasoning 
against the king which the king himself had used against him. 
Neither the pole, nor the wheels, nor the body, nor the yoke is 
the chariot. The chariot, moreover, is not the combination of 
all those component parts, or anything else beyond them. 
'^Wherever I look then, great king, I nowhere find the 
chariot. A mere word, king, is the chariot. What then is 
the chariot ? Thou speakost false then, king, and thou liest; 
there is no chariot. Thou art, great king, suzerain of all 
India. Of whom, therefore, hast thou any dread, that thou 
speakest untruth ? Well to be sure ! let the five hundred 
Yavanas and the eighty thousand monks hear it. This king 
Milinda has said : ' I have come here in a chariot.* Then I 
said, ^If thou hast come on a chariot, great king, ther 
explain the chariot V And he could not point out the chariot 
Can anyone assent to this V^ 

When he spoke thus, the five hundred Yavanas shoutf 
approval of the venerable N%asena and said to king Milin(? 
/^ Now, great king, speak, if thou canst.** 

But king Milinda said to the venerable Nagasena : 

^^ I do not speak untruly, venerable N&gasena. In refer 



THE SOUL. 



) polej I 



wheels, body and bar, the namej the appellation, 
the designation, the epithet, the word ' chariot ' is used." 

" Good indeed, great king, thou kuoweat tha chariot. And 
in the same way, king, in reference to my hair, my akin and 
bones, to corporeal form, sensations, perceptions, conforma- 
tions, and coTiscioiisness, tho word N^gaaena is used : but here 
Biibjecfi, in the strict sense of tho word, there is uono. Thus 
also, great king, has the nun Vajira explained in the presence 
of the Exalted One (Buddha) : 

" ' As in the case where the parts of a chariot come together 
the word 'chariot' is used, so also where the five groups* are, 
there is a person ; that is the common notion.' " 

" "Well done, venerable NAgaaena ! wonderful, Nilgasona ! 
Hany questionings indeed arose in my mind and thou hast 
x^solved them. If Buddha were alive, he would applaud thee. 
Bravo ! bravo ! Nilgasena ; many questionings arose in my 
mind and thou hast resolved them," 

"We have selected for quotation this passage of the " Ques- 
tions of Milinda," because it controverts the idea of a soul- 
sabstance more fully and clearly than is done in the canonical 
texts. But tho old texts thomselves virtually rest on the same 
ground and the dialogue does not omit to authenticate it, by 
expressly quoting tho canonical books. Although the "Milinda- 
panha" was wi-itten apparently in the north-west of the Indian 
peninsula, and the sacred texts lie before ns in the form in 
which they were preserved, and still are preserved, in the 
cloisters of Ceylon, nevertheless the words of the nun Vajirfi. 
quoted in the dialogue are actually to be found in these tests. 



• The flvii groupa of the elementa, which make up the being of any oi 
tliat exists : material form, sensations, peri'eptiDas, conformBtiDna, co 
tcionsness. 

17 



^^^^RS8 TEE B 

^^^^■I hare succeeded in finding them there,* and the connection m 

^^^^B which they occur is a guarantee that the conversation of tho 

^^^^V saint Ndgasena and the Greek king Menander truly reflects ti 

^^^H old Church teaching on the subject. MftrS) tho tempterj ' 

^^^m seeks to confuse men by error and heresy, appears before^ 

^^^1 nun and says to her : " Thou art that by which personality ib 

^^H constituted, the creator of the person; the person that has an 

^^B origin, that thou art ; thou art the person that passes atvay." 

^B Sho answers: "What meanest thou, Milra, that there is a 

^V person ? False is thy teaching. This is only a heap of 

^B changeful conformations (SankhA,ra} ; here there is not a person. 

H .-^.s in the case where the parts of a chariot come together the 

■ word 'chariot' is used, so also where the fire groups are, there 

■ is a person j that is the common notion. Pain alone it is that 
f comes, pain that exists and that passes away ; nothing else 

but pain arises, nothing else but pain vanishes again." 

Thought has smitten down tho stony, unvarying entity ^l 
Brahmanism; here it reahzes in full consciousness the ultim 
consequences of its act : if it is the absolutely restless move- 
ment of things which creates suffering, it cannot be said any 
more, " I suffer, thou suSerest ; " there is left alone the 
certainty that there is snfEering, or better stUlj that suffering 
keeps on coming and going. For the stream of Sankharas 
appearing and again vanishing admits no " I " and no " thou," 
but only a phenomenon of the " I " and " thou," which the many 
in their hallucination address with an appellation of personality.!- 

• In the Bhiikhuni Sazpyntta, " Saray. Nik." vol. i, foL ghai'-gho. 

t Tho difficulty of bringing this doctrine ;of the non-exiatence of 
subject in the complex of the body -cum- spirit attributes of man ini 
harmony with the doctrine of moral retribution of our actions, h&s bee J 
keenly felt. " If material form be not the ego, if sensations, percepti 
formations, conBc-iouBnesa be not the ego, what ego ia there to be afiecti 



Imagiaation, which in the service of inquiring thonght seeks 
for types and symbols of formless ideas in the form-world of 
nature, has at all times when its object was to represent a being, 
the characteristic of which is movement, chosen with decided 
preference two images : the flowing stream of water and the 
self-consuming flame. In the dark sayings of Buddha's great 
contemporary, HeraklitoSj who in his theory of the being of 
beings more nearly approaches Buddha than does any other 
Greek thinker, both comparisons are constantly recurring in 
the foreground : " Everything flows on ; " the universe is " an 
ever-living fire." The figurative language of Buddhism also 
employs both the stream and the flamo as symbols of the 
restless movement involved in every state of being. But in 
this the Buddhist figure difi'ers from that of the Ephesian, that 
Bnddhism, ignoring every metaphysical interest which has not 
its root in an ethical interest, does not in its view of the water 
and the flame contemplate the mere movement, the bare 
becoming only, but above all the to-hnmaD-life-so-momentons 
and destructive power of this movoment, this becoming- 
There are four great currents which break in with destructive 
force upon the human world : the stream of desire, the stream 
of being, the stream of error, the stream of ignorance. " The 

by tho work, wliich the non-ego now performa p" Thus a monk asks. 
Buddha answers the question : " "With thy tlioughta, which are under the 
dominion of desire, doat thon dream thou eanst overhaul the teaching of 
the Master " {" Sarayutta Nikftya,'' vol. i, fol. du). In fact Buddhism does 
not allow itself to be confused by metaphysical questiona as to tho 
identity of the subject, ia its belief that the reward and punishment of 
our actions OTcrtakes us. If in our present state of being this or that 
happens to ns, it is a result of the fact, that we hare done this oi that 
in a previous existence : in this eimple belief, universally comprehensible, 
this idea ia firmly kept in view, heedless of theoretical diiEculties, that 
he who performs an evil action, and he who suffers the pimishmetit 
thereof, are one and the same person. 

17* 



260 THE 80VL. 

sea, the sea : thns^ O disciples, saith a child of this worlds who 
hath not received the Doctrine. But this^ O disciples^ is not 
that which is called the sea in the Doctrine of the H0I7 One; 
this is only a great mass of water, a great flood of water. The 
eye of man, O disciples, is the sea ; things visible are the foam 
of this sea. He who hath overcome the foaming billows of 
visible things, of him, O disciples, it is said: That is a 
Brahman who hath in his inner man outridden the sea of the 
eye, with its waves and whirlpools, with its depths profound 
and its prodigies ; he hath reached the shore ; he stands on 
firm earth.'' (The same follows regarding the sea of hearing 
and the other senses.) '' Thus spake the Exalted One ; when 
the Perfect One had thns spoken, the Master went on to say : 

" ' If thou this sea with its abyss of waters. 
Full of waves, fnll of deeps, full of monsters. 
Hast crossed, wisdom and holiness are thy portion ; 
The land hast thou, the goal of the universe hast tlum reached.' *^ 

But no other picture was so perfectly adapted for Buddhism 
to express the nature of being as the figure of flame, which, 
remaining in apparently restful invariability, is yet only a 
continuous self -production and self -consumption, and in which 
at the same time is embodied, with a still more impressive 
reality for the Indians than for us, the tormenting power of 
heat, the enemy of blissful coolness, the enemy of happiness 
and peace. *' As, where there is heat, coolness is also found, 
so also where there is the threefold fire — the fire of love, hate 
and infatuation — ^the extinction of the fire (Nirv&na) must be 
sought.^' t — " Everything, O disciples, is in flames. And what 
Everything is in flames ? The eye is in flames, and so on 
By what fire is it kindled ? By the fire of desire, by the fire 

* " Samyntta Nikliya," vol. ii, fol. chi. f " Buddhavamsa." 



hate, by the fire of faEoiQation, it is kindled ; by birth, old age, 
death, pain, lamentation, sorrow, grief, despair, it is kindled : 
thus I say,"* — " The whole world is in flames ; the whole 
world is wrapped in smoke, the whole world is wasted by fire ; 
the whole world quakes. "f 

Bat to US in this connection more important than the 
employment of the metaphor of fire, from an ethical point of 
Tiew, is its introduction to illustrate the metaphysical nature 
of being as of a continuous process. It is reserved to later 
texta to work up this metaphor to perfect clearness; but it 
ah-eady exists in the sacred wi-itings, although we feel how 
thoQght has here to struggle with expression. Beings 
resemble a flame ; their state of being, their becoming 
re-bom is a flaming cleaving of self, a feeding of self upon 
the fuel which the world of impormanence supplies. As the 
fiame, clinging to the wind, borne by the wind, iufiames even 
distant things, so the flame-like existence of beings, presses 
on in the moment of re-birtb into far distances ; here the 
being puts ofl" the old body, there it clothes itself with a new 
body. As the wind carries on the flame, so the thirst which 
clings to being carries on the soul from one existence to 
another, j: 

In the previously quoted dialogue " The Questions of 
Milinda,"|| the conversation turns upon the problem of the 
identi^ or non-identity of the being in his several existences. 
The saint NslgasDna says : it is not the same being and yet 
they are not separate beings which relieve one another in the 

• " MaMvagga," i, 21, vide supia, p. 183, seri. 
t " Stupyurta NikiLya," vol, i, fol. ghai. 

J Cf. the above (p. 234) quoted dialogue of Buddha and the monk 
THccha. 
II P. 40. 



262 THE 80UL. 

series of existences. "Give an illustration/' says king 
Milinda. "If a man were to light a light/ O great king, 
wonld it not bum on through the night?'' — "Yes, sire, it 
would bum through the night." — " How then, O great king, 
is the flame in the first watch of the night identical with the 
flame in the midnight watch ?" — " No, aire." — " And the flame 
in the midnight watch, is it identical with the flame in the last 
watch of the night ?" — "No, sire." — "But how then, O great 
king, was the light in the first watch of the night another, 
in the midnight watch another, and in the last watch of the 
night another?" — "No, sire, it has burned all night long 
feeding on the same fuel." — "So also, O great king, the 
chain of elements of being (Dhamma) completes itself: the one 
comes, the other goes. Without beginning, without end, 
the circle completes itself: therefore it is neither the same 
being nor another being, which presents itself last to the 
consciousness." 

Being is, we may say, the procession — regulated by the 
law of causality — of continuous being at every moment self- 
consuming and anew begetting. What we term a souled 
being, is one individual member in the line of this procession, 
one flame in this sea of flame. As in consuming the flame is 
always seeking fresh fuel for itself, so also this continuity 
of perception, sensation, action and sufiering, which seems to 
the deluded gaze, deceived by the appearance of unbroken 
invariability, to be a being, a subject, maintains itself in 
the general influx and evanescence of ever fresh elements 
from the domain of the objective world. 



CAUSALITY ASD ITS CESSATION, 



The Saint — The Ego — The Nirvana. 

Sitting onder the tree of knowledge Buddha says to Mm- 
self : " Difficult will it be for men to grasp the law of 
aueality, the chain of causes and effects. And this also will 
be very hard for them to grasp, the coming of all conformationB 
to an end, the loosening from everything earthly, the 
extinction of desire, tho cessation of longing, the end, the 
Nirvina." These words divide the circle, which Buddhist 
thought describes, into its two natural halves. On the one 
aide the earthly world, ruled by the law of causality. On 
the other side — is it the eternal ? Is it the Nothing ? We 
may doubt. "We know this much only to begin with, that it 
is the domain over which the law of causality has no power. 

Our sketch will follow this clearly indicated division. 

From the flames of becoming, decease, and suffering, the 
believer, he who has knowledge, saves himself in the world 
of "extinction" (Nirvana), in the cool quiet of everlasting 
peace. He overcomes ignorance and thereby sets himself 
free from the painful fruits which are bound np with it 
through the natural necessity of the law of causality. He 
knowa the four aacred truths, and " while ho thus knows 
and apprehends, his sonl is freed from the calamity of desire, 
freed from the calamity of becoming, freed from the calamity 
of error, freed from the calamity of ignorance. In the 
delivered there arises the knowledge of his deHverance ; 
ended is re-birth, fnlfilled the law, duty done, there ia no 
more any returning to this world : this he knows." 

Buddha's disciplo hopes to attain this happiness not merely 
in the hereafter. He who has conquered ignorance and got 
rid of desire enjoys the supreme reward already in this life. 



26i TflK BAJNT'-THE BOO—THE NIRVANA. 

His oater man may still be detained in the world of suffering ; 
lie knows that it is not he himself whom the coming and 
going of the Sankh&ras affects. Baddhist proverbial philo- 
sophy attributes in innomerable passages the possession oi 
Nirvfina to the saint^ who still treads the earth : 

^' The disciple who has put off lost and desire^ rich in wisdom^ 
has here on earth attained the deliverance from deaths the rest^ 
the Nirv&na^ the eternal state/' 

'^ He who has escaped from the trackless^ hard mazes of the 
Sans&ra^ who has crossed over and reached the shore^ self- 
absorbed^ without stumbling and without doubt^ who has 
delivered himself from the earthly^ and attained Nirv&na^ him 
I call a true Brahman/'* 

It is not an anticipation in parlance^ but it is the absolutely 
exact expression of the dogmatic thought, when not merely 
the hereafter^ which awaits the emancipated saint^ but the 
perfection which he already attains in this life^ is called the 
Nirv&na. What is to be extinguished has been extinguisbed^ 
the fire of lust^ hatred^ bewilderment. - In unsubstantial dis- 
tance lie hope and fear; the will, the hugging of the halluci- 
nation of egoity is subdued, as a man throws aside the foolish 
wishes of childhood. What matters it whether the transitory 
state of being, the root of which is nipped, lay aside its 
indifferent phenomenal life instantaneously or in after ages? 

If the saint will even now put an end to his state of 

* " Suttasangaha," fol. c^ ; " Dhammapada/' 414. The prose texts 
contain very numerous similar expressions. For instance, a Brahmanical 
ascetic addresses to Sariputta this question : "Nirvana, niry&na, so they say, 
friend Sariputta. But what is the Nirvana, friend ? " " The subjugation 
of desire, the subjugation of hatred, the subjugation of perplexity; tliis, 
O friend, is called Nirvana." Thereon follows in the same way the 
question : "Holiness, holiness (arahatta), so they say," &c. The answer 
is word for word similar to the preceding (" Samy. Nik." ii, fiaip). 



TSE SmvAHA IN THIS LIFE. 



2G5 



I Iwiiig lie can do bo, but the majority stand fk&t until nature 
s reached her goal : of such may those words be said which 
are put in the mouth of the moat prominent of Buddha's 
disciples : " I long not for death, 1 long not for life j I wait till 
mine hour come, like a servant who awuiteth his reward. I 
long not for death, I long not for life ; I wait till mine hour 
come, alert and with watchful mind."* 

If we are to indicate the precise point at which the goal is 
reached for the Buddhist, we must not look to the entry of the 
dying Perfect One into the range of the everlasting — be this 
either everlasting being or everlasting nothiug — but to that 
moment of his earthly life, when he has attained the status of 
sinle&sness and painlessness ; this is the true Nirvana. If the 
Buddhist faith really make the saint's state of being disembody 
itself into nothingness — we shall come directly to the qaestion 
whether it does so — still entry into nothingness for nothingneaa' 
sake is not at all the object of aspiration which has been 
set before the Bnddhisfc. The goal to which he pressed was, 
we must constantly repeat this, solely deliverance from tho 
sorrowful world of origination and decease. Eeligioua 
aspiration did not purposely and expressly demand that this 
dehverance should transport to nothingness, but when this 
was tanght at all expression was merely given thereby to the 
indifferent, accidental consequences of metaphysical reflections, 
which prevent the assumption of an everlasting, immutable, 
happy existence. In the religious life, iu the tone which 
prevailed in the ancient Buddhist order, the thought of 
annihilation has had no influence. " Aa the great sea, 
disciples, is permeated by but one taste, the taste of salt, so 
also, O disciples, this Doctrine and this Law are pervaded by 
bat one taste, tho taste of dehverance." 

• " Milindapaiiha," p. 45, ef, Therag. foL ko. 



266 THE SAmr-^THB EGO^THE NIRVJNA. 

• 

Oar speculations must not seek to discover what is the 
essence of a faith; we must permit the adherents of each 
&ith themselves to determine this^ and it is for historical 
inqniry to point out how they have defined it. If any one 
describe3 Buddhism as a religion of annihilation, and attempts 
to develope it therefrom as from its specific germ^ he has, in 
fact, succeeded in wholly missing the main drift of Buddha and 
the ancient order of his disciples. 

Has the saint attained the goal of his earthly life, then is true 
of him what an old text says of Buddha :* '' The body of the 
Perfect One, O disciples, subsists, cut off from the stream of 
becoming. As long as his body subsists, so long will gods 
and men see him ; if his body be dissolved, his life run out, 
gods and men shall no more behold him.'^ While in the case 
of beings who are committed to the path of metempsychosis, 
consciousness (viiiii&na), escaping from the dying, becomes the 
germ of a new state of being, the consciousness of the dying 
saint is extinguished without residuum. "Dissolved is the 
body/^ says Buddha, when one of the disciples has entered 
into Nirv&na, " extinct is perception ; the sensations have all 
vanished away. The conformations have found their repose : the 
consciousness has sunk to its rest.^'f 

When the venerable Godhika has brought about his own 
death by opening a vein, the disciples see a dark doud of 
smoke moving to and fro on all sides round his corpse. They 
ask Buddha what the smoke means. "That is M&ra, the 
wicked one, disciples,^' says Buddha: "he is looking for 
the noble Godhika's consciousness: 'where has the noble 
Godhika's consciousness found its place?' But the nobld 



* " Brahmajalasutta " (at the end), 
t " Ud&na " (Phayre MS.), foL nu. 



THE SAINT'B DEATH. 2G7 

Godhika tas entered into NirvAna; tis consciousness nowliei'C 



IX>e8 tliis end of the earthly existence imply at the same 
time tie total cessation of being ? Is it the Nothing which 
receives the dying Perfect One into its dominion ? 

Step by step we have prepared the ground so as now to he 
able to face this question. 

Some have thought to find the answer to this question con- 
tained in the word Nirvfina itself, i.e., " Extinction," It seemed 
the most obvious construction that extinction ia an extinction 
cf being in the Nothing. But doubts were soon expressed as 
to the propriety of so summary a disposal of this question. It 
inas quite allowable to speak of an extinction in the case — and 
the term was most incontrovertihly nsed by the Indians in the 

le — ^where being was not annihilated, but where it, freed 
'om the glowing heat of sufiering, had found the path to the 
«ool repose of painless happiness. t Max Miiller has above all 
others maintained with warm eloquence the notion of NirvSna 
AS the completion but not as an extinction of being.J His 
position is, that although later Buddhist metaphysicians have 

Sainyutta NikiLja," Tol. i, fol. ghi'. The atory ia also narrated in 
the eonmientarf to the " Dhammapada,," p. 255. 

t How uniTcraally in the language of that age the word HirrEtna 
denoted the iicmmum honum, without aoy reference to the close of 
wiatence, is clearly shown hy the following passage, in which the view 
fiODsideTJng earthly enjoyments aa the highest good is spoken of: " There 
O disoiplea, many SainanaH and Brahmans, who thus teach and thus 
believe : If the ego moves, gifted and endowed with the pleasure of all 
the five senses, then has this ego, tarrying in tho visible world, attained 
the highest KirvElna." — Brahtnajdlasutfa. 

X Introduction to Eogers, " Buddhaghoaha's Parables," p. xi:xis, seq. 



268 TEE SAIST—THE EOO—THE NIRFAHA. 

undoubtedly regarded the Nothing as the supreme object of all 
effort, yet the original teaching of Buddha and the ancient 
order of his disciples was different : for thorn the Nirvana mt 
nothing more than tho entry of the spirit upou its rest, ta 
eternal beatitude, which is as highly exalted above the joya, u 
it is above the sorrow of the transitory world. Would no^ 
asks Max Miiller, a rehgion, which lands us at last in the 
Nothing, cease to be a religion F It would no longer be iriiit 
every rehgion ought to be and purports to be, a bridge from ite 
temporal to the eternal, hut it would bo a delusive gangway, 
which suddenly breaks off and shoots a man, just when he 
&ncies he has reached the goal of the eternal, into the abyss of 
aunihilation. 

We cannot follow the famous inquirer, when he attempts 
to trace the limits between tho possible and the impossible in 
the developement of religion. In the sultry, dreamy stiUnoa 
of India, thoughts spring and grow, every surmise and enrf 
sensation grows, otherwise than in the cool air o£ the west 
Perhaps what is here beyond compreheusion may there be 
comprehensible, and if we reach a point which is to qb a limit 
of the comprehensible, we shall permit much to pass and Btftnd 
as incomprehensible, and await the future, which may bring M 
nearer the solution of the enigm.a. 

Max Midler's researches, which could under the then eircniD- 
stances of the case be based on only a portion of the authentic 
texts bearing on this branch of the subject, did not feil to 
attract the attention of native hterati in Ceylon, the couaiij 
which has preserved to the present day Buddhist tenipenoflok 
and knowledge in its purest form. And by the joint laboiBB 
of eminent Singhalese students of Buddhist hteratnre, such, 
as the late James d'Alwis, and European inquirers, amon ^g 
whom we may mention especially Childers, Khys Dai 




BAPPrSESS OR AmflHIhATION. 



Trenekner, literary materials for the elucidation of the dogma 

of Nirvftna have been amply unearthed and ably treated. 

hare endeavoured to complete the collections, for which 

> have to thank these learned scholars, in that I have 

BTibmitted all the testimony of the sacred Pali canon, that 

contained in the discourses of Bnddha as well as that in the 

writings upon the rights of the Order, to a detailed examina- 

ion, so that I believe I am in a position to hopo that no 

essential expression of the ancient dogmatics and doctrinal 

^oets has been omitted.* Bc-fore I undertook this task, it 

■^vas my conviction that there is in the ancient Buddhist iitera- 

"tniro no passage which directly decides the alternative whether 

the Nirvana is eternal felicity or annihiJation. So much the 

greater therefore was my surprise, when in the course of 

"these researches I lit not upon one passage, but upon very 

ainmerous passages, which speak as espreasly as possible 

upon the point, regarding which the controversy is waged, 

and determine it with a clearness which leaves nothing to be 

desired. And it was no less a cause of astonishment to me 

when I found that in that alternative, which appeared to have 

been laid down with all possible cogency, viz., that the NirvSna 

must have been understood in the ancient Order to be either ' 

the Nothing or a supreme felicity, there was finally neither on 

the one side nor on the other perfect accuracy. 

We shall now endeavour to state the question as it mnst 
have presented itself to Buddhist dogmatic on its own premises, 
and then the answer which the question has received. 

A doctrine which contemplates a future of eternal perfection 
behind transitory being, cannot possibly admit of the kingdom 

• In Excursus iii. further quotations are given from the materials 
here mentioued, and tiie dopnatic tcmiinology is diseuaaod in detail at 
greater length than appeared expedient in thia place. 



270 TMB SAINT— TSE EGO— THE SIRVlSA. 

of the eternal first "beginning only at the point where the 
world of the transient ends, cannot conjnre it up immediately, 
as it were out of the Nothing. In the kingdom of the tnmsient 
itself there must be contained, veiled perhaps like a latent 
germ, but still present, an element which bears in itaeK the 
pledge of everlasting being stretching out beyond originaticfn 
and decease. It is possible that, where the claims of strict 
dialectic sequence are opposed by motives of another kind, 
thought pauses before accepting this so obvious conclusion; 
but it is important before we examine these deviations from the 
logical consequence, which we may possibly expect to find, to 
obtain a view of the form in which the logical consequence 
must have presented itself to Buddhist thonght. 

The finite world appears in the dogmatic of Buddhism to rest 
wholly upon itself. Whatever we see, whatever we hear, oat 
seusea as well as the objects which are presented to thso, 
everything is drawn within the cycle of origination and decease; 
everything is only a Dhamma, a Sankhara, and all Dhammaa, 
^ Sankh&ras aro transitory. Whence this cycle ? No matter 
whence; it is there from a past beyond ken. The exiatence 
of the conditional is accepted as a given fact; thonght eluinlts 
from going back to the unconditional. 

This is specially evident in the question as to the aonl, tie 
personahty. " This is only a heap of Sankhdraa j here there is 
not a person " (p. 253). 

We see : the finite world bears in itself no traces whici 
point to its connection with a world of the eternal. How could 
it possibly be otherwise ? Where the opposition of th« 
transient and eternal is carried to the point which Indian. 
thought has here reached, there can in fact ba no naioo 
conceived between the two extremes. Had the eternal ai*7 
share whatsoever iu the occurrences of the world of tlii* 



BAPPINES8 OR ANNIBILATION. 271 

changeablej a shadow of the changeable would fall on its own 
tmchangeability. The conditional can only be thought of as 
conditioned through another conditional. If we follow the 
dialectic consequence solely, it is impossible on the basis of 
^Jiis theory of life to conceive how, where a series of conditions 
run ont, annihilating itself, anything else is to be recog- 
lized as remaining but a vacuum. 

This is the consequence. Does Buddhism actually admit 
3us? 

We must here insert a few remarks upon the standard 
Bchnical terms, which our testa are wont to use in dealiug 
ith these questions. 

The word which we have translated " Person " (Satta) in the 
assages quoted, is not tho precise technical term which the 
[rahnianical speculation, discussed by ua at an earlier stage, 
i&d coined as tho most exact and special expression for tho 
itemal in man : Atman, " the self," " tho ego." The Buddhist 
Eta deal with the Atman (in Pah : Atta) also. If the demands 
dialectic alone be regarded, it cannot be understood how tho 
[Destion regarding tho "ego" was to be answered othorwise 
,n the question as to the " person " — it seems clear enough 
,t both words are only different names for the same idea, and 
,t he who denies the existence of the "person," cannot 
naintain the existence of the " ego " or even admit it possible. 
Beside the expression Atman {attfi.) wo place another, of 
'hich the same maybe said, the name Tatbagata, "the Perfect 
hie." Buddha is in the habit of calling himself Tathagata in 
B Buddhahood (p. 12G). If a question be raised as to the 
isentiaKty and everlasting continuance of the Tathagata, this 
altogether parallel to the question regarding the essentiality 
id continuance of the ego ; if there bo an ego, tho sacred 
Brfect personality of tho Tath&gata must undoubtedly be the 



272 THE BAXNT—THB EGO— THE mRVAHA. 

ego^ which deserves this name in the highest sense^ which bears 
in itself the greatest claim to everlasting being. But as we 
might expect, with the lot of the "person '' (satta) the lot of 
the Tath&gata, as well as that of the ego (attft)^ is oast. 

Let ns see whether the expressions of the Buddhist texts are 
in accordance with this view. 

''Then the wandering monk* Yacchagotta went to where 
the Exalted One was staying. When he had come near him, 
he saluted him. When, saluting him, he had interchanged 
friendly words with him, he sat down beside him. Sitting 
beside him the wandering monk Yaochagotta spake to the 
Exalted One, saying : '' How does the matter stand, venerable 
Gotama, is there the ego (att&) V^ 

When he said this, the Exalted One was silent. 

" How then, venerable Gotama, is there not the ego V* 

And still the Exalted One maintained silence. Then the 
wandering monk Yacchagotta rose from his seat and went 
away. 

But the venerable Ananda, when the wandering monk 
Yacchagotta had gone to a distance, soon said to the Exalted 
One : *' wherefore, sire, has the Exalted One not given an 
answer to the questions put by the wandering monk 
Yacchagotta ?" 

"If I, Ananda, when the wandering monk Yacchagotta 
asked me : ' Is there the ego V had answered : ' the ego is,' 
then that, Ananda, would have confirmed the doctrine of the 
Samanas and Brahmanas who believe in permanence.f If I, 
Ananda, when the wandering monk Yacchagotta asked me: 

* A monk of a non-Buddhist sect. The dialogue here translated is 
to be found in the " Samyuttaka Nik^ya," vol. ii, fol. tan. 

t " A few Samanas and Brahmanas, who believe in permanence, teach 
that the ego and the world are permanent." — Brahmajdlcututta, 



TBE EQO. 273 

* is there not the ego?' had answered ; 'the ego is not/ then 
that, Ananda, would have confirmed the doctrine o£ the 
Samanaa and Brahmanas, who believe in annihihition.* If I, 
Ananda, when the wandering monk Vacchagotta asked me : 
' is there tho ego ?' had answered : 'the ego is,' wonld that have 
served my end, Ananda, by producing ia him the knowledge : 
all eiistencea (dhamma) are non-ego T " 
That it woold not, sire." 

Bat i£ I, Ananda, when the wandering monk Vacchagotta, 
asked me ; ' Is there not the ogo ? ' had answered : ' The ego is 
not,' then that, Ananda, would only have caused the wandering 
monk Vacchagotta to be thrown from one bewilderment into 
another : 'My ago, did it not exist before ? but now it exists 
no longer !' " 

We see : the person who has framed this dialogue, has in 
Lis thought very nearly approached the consequence, which 
leads to the negation of the ego. It may almost be said, 
that, though probably he did not wish to express this 
consequence with overt consciouaneas, yet he has in fact 
'expressed it, IE Buddha avoids the negation of the existence 
of the ego, he doos so in order not to shock a weak-miuded 
hearer. Through the shirking of the question as to the 
existence or non-existence of the ego, is heard the answer, 
to which the premises of the Buddhist teaching tended : The 
ego is not. Or, what is equivalent : The NirvS.na is 
annihilation. 

But we can well uDderstand why these thiutera, who 

* " A few Somanas and Brabmaiii', who believe in aimiliilatioii, teach 
liut the person (satta) is, and that it undergoca annibilatLOii, destruction, 
•nd removal" (ibidem). — It is meant, that the ego, even without beinj; 
piuified horn eai», undergoes no tranamignttion, but becomes extinct in 



274 TBE SAINT-^-THE EQO^THE NIBVANA. 

were in a position to realize this ultimate conseqaence and 
to bear it^ abandoned the erection of it as an official dogma 
of the Buddhist order. There were enough^ and more than 
enough, of hopes and wishes, from which he who desired to 
follow the Sakya's son, had to sever his heart. Why present 
to the weak the keen edge of the truth : the victor's prize of 
the delivered is the Nothing? True, it is not permissible to 
put falsehood in the place of truth, but it is allowable to 
draw a well-meant veil over the picture of the truth, the sight 
of which threatens the destruction of the unprepared. What 
harm did it do ? That which was alone of intrinsic worth and 
essential to excite the struggle for deliverance was maintained 
in unimpaired force, the certainty that deliverance is to be 
found only where joys and sorrows of this world have ceased. 
Was the emancipation of him, who knew how to free himself 
from everything transitory, not perfect enough ? Would it 
become more perfect, if he were driven to acknowledge that 
beside the transitory there is only the Nothing ? 

Therefore the official teaching of the Church represented 
that on the question, whether the ego is, whether the perfected 
saint lives after death or not, the exalted Buddha has taught 
nothing.* 

From the texts, in which this shirking of the question is 
inculcated, the following epitomized dialogue may be given.f 

The venerable M&lukya comes to the Master and expresses 
his astonishment that the Master's discourse leaves a series of 

* The first scholar, who has given the correct interpretation of a text 
having an important bearing on this connection and has directed 
attention to -this disallowing of the question as to continuance in the 
hereafter, is, as far as I know, V. Trenckner (" Milinda P." 424). I 
am glad to find my independently formed conclusion confirmed by the 
opinion of this able Danish scholar. 

t '* Cula-Malukya-Ovada " (Majjhima Nik&ya). 



siSALLowma the question as to tee ultimate OOAL. 275 

tlie very most important and deepest qaestiona unanswered. 
la the world eternal or ia it limited by bonnds of time ? Does 
the perfect Buddha (Tathagata) live on beyond death ? Does 
the Perfect One not live on beyond death ? It pleases ma not, 
says that monk, that all this should remain nnanswered, and I 
do not think it right ; therefore I am come to the Master to 
interrogate him about these doubts. May it please Buddha 
*o answer them if he can. " But when anyone does not 
understand a matter and does not know it, then a straight- 
forward man says : I do not nnderstand that, I do not know 
*hat." 

We see : the question of the NirvSrna is brought before 
Saddha by that monk as directly and definitely as conld 67er 
"be poHsible. And what answers Buddha ? He says in his 
Socratic fashion, not without a touch of irony : — 

" "What have I said to thee before now, Malukyaputta ? 
Have I said ; Come, Malukyaputta, and be my disciple ; I 
shall teach thee, whether the world is everlasting or not 
everlasting, whether the world is finite or infinite, whether ' 
the vital faculty is identical with the body or separate from it, 
whether the Perfect One lives on after death or does not live 
on, or whether the Perfect One lives on and at the same time 
does not hve on after death, or whether he neither lives on 
nor does not hve on ? " 

" That thou hast not said, sire." 

Or haat thou, Buddha goes on, said to me : I shall be thy 
disciple, declare unto me, whether the world is everlasting or 
not everlasting, and ao on ? 

This also must M^lukya answer in the negative. 
If a man, Buddha proceeds, were struck by a poisoned 
arrow, and his friends and relatives caUed in a ekihal 
physician : what if the wounded man said : " I shall nob 

18* 



276 THE BAINT'-THE EGO— THE NJBVANA. 

allow my wound to be treated until I know who the man i& 
by whom I have been wounded^ whether he is a noble, a 
Brahman, a Vai9ya, or Qudra '*— or if he said : " I shall not 
allow my wound to be treated, until I know what they call the 
man who has wounded me, and of what family he is, whether 
he is tall, or small, or of middle stature, and how his weapon 
was made, with which he has struck me.^' What would the 
end of the case be ? The man would die of his wound. 

Why has Buddha not taught his disciples, whether the 
world is finite or infinite, whether the saint lives on beyond 
death or not ? Because the knowledge of these things does 
not conduce to progress in holiness, because it does ioiot 
contribute to peace and enlightenment. What contributes 
to peace and enlightenment, Buddha has taught his own: 
the truth of sufiering, the truth of the origin of suffering, the 
truth of the cessation of suffering, the truth of the path to the 
cessation of suffering.* "Therefore, Mfilukyaputta, whatso- 
ever has not been revealed by me, let that remain unrevealed, 
and what has been revealed, let it be revealed." 

Our researches must accept this clear and decisive solution 
of the question, recurring often in the sacred texts, as it is 
given ; it needs no interpretation, and admits of no strained 
construction. Orthodox teaching in the ancient order of 
Buddhists inculcated expressly on its converts to forego 
the knowledge of the being or non-being of the perfected 
saint. 

But, besides the question as to what was recognized as the 
orthodox dogma, there is yet another which we have to take 
up. Who would believe that he has fathomed the faith and 

* The wording of the passage of which an epitome is here given is 
identical with that given before at p. 204. 



EVASION OF liUESTIOm AS TO ULTIMATE GOAL. i 

iiope of the devout heart, when he knowa the dogma, which 
the Chnrch prescribed and to which the believer subaeribed ? 
Waa the waiving of the question which the religious oon- 
scioasness cannot cease altogether to put to itself over and 
over again, sufficient to eliminate from the spirits of Buddha's 
disciples the craving for a Yea or No ? Certainly the Tee or 
the No might not be declared as doctrine; this would be 
iieretical disobedience of Buddha's injunction. , But it might 
Tuake itself perceptible like a vibration, like a gentle flutter 
of Ught or shadow, something felt rather than d^uahlo; 
it might, even where the honest purpose to faithfully enunciate 
the dogma existed, betray itself between the lines, in an 
incautious expression, in a word too many or too few. In 
the dialogue between Buddha and Ananda (p. 272, seq.), 
a trace seemed to show itself of how some resolute spirits 
in the order were not far from perceiving that the oouclusion 
of the doctrine involves the negation of the ego, the negation 
of an eternal future. But this very circumstance, that the 
official dogmatic abstained from answering these questions, was 
sure to lead to greater liberty and variety in the solutions 
which individual thought worked out, than could be the case 
with regard to problems, for which a recognized orthodox 
Bolation had been furnished. Could not that negative answer, 
which we have come to recognize as the true answer of close 
dialectic, be mot by an affirmative also ? Might not hearts, 
that quailed before the Nothing, that could not relinquish the 
hope of everlasting weal, gather from Buddha's silence above 
all this one response, that it was not forbidden to them to 
hope? 

It appears to me that among the many utterances on theae 
questions, which are bound up together in the great complex 



27S THE SAINT— TBE EGO— THE NIRVANA. 

of the Bacred writiDgs, traces of such stations, as I hare here 
described, are nnmistakably enough to be .seen. 

Kin g Pasenadi of Kosala, we are told,* on one occasion oa 
a journey between his two chief towns, S&keta and SAvatthi, 
fell in with the nun Khern^, a female disciple of Baddha, 
renowned for her wisdom. The king paid his respects to her, 
and inquired of her concerning the sacred doctrine. 

"Venerable lady," asked the king, "does the Perfect One 
(Tath&gata) exist after death ? " 

" The Exalted One, great king, has not declared : the 
Perfect One exists after death." 

" Then does the Perfect One not exist after death, venerable 
lady ? " 

" This also, O great king, the Exalted One has not declared : 
the Perfect One does not exist after death." 

"Thus, venerable lady, the Perfect One does exist after 
death, and at the same time does not exist after death ? — thus, 
venerable lady, the Perfect Oae neither exists after death, nor 
does he not exist ? " 

The tmswer is still the same : the Perfect One has not 
revealed it. We see how great pains aro taken, with that 
somewhat clumsy subtlety which is characteristic of thon^t 
at every step in this stage of development, not merely to 
exhaust the two alternatives immediately confrontiDg each 
other, but in the most careful manner to close up all joinings 
and loopholes, by which the true facta of the case mi^t 
escape being caught in the logical net. But it ia in vain ; the 
Exalted One has not revealed this. 

The king is astonished. " What is the reason, vencroWe 

• •■ Sainyutta Niiaja," vol. ii, fol. no, seq. 



EVASION OF QUEBTIOKS A8 TO VLTIMATi: GOAL. 



279 



lady, what is the ground, on which the Exalted One has not 
revealed this ? " 

'Permit me," answers the nun, "now to ask thee a 
<]iiestion, great Mng, and do tbon aDswer me aa the case 
eeems to thee to stand. How thinkest thou, great king, 
last thou an accountant, or a mint-master, or a treasurer, who 
«onld comit the sands of the Ganges, who coald say : there 
«re there so many grains of sand, or so many hundreds, or 
iihoQsands, or hnudreda of thonaanda of grains of sand ? " 

" No, venerable lady, I have not." 

" Or hast thou an accountant, a mint-master or a treasurer, 
"who could measure the water in the great ocean, who could 
say : there are therein so many measures of water, or so many 
hnndreds or thousands, or hundreds of thousands of measures 
of water F " 

" No, venerable lady, I have not." 

"And why not? The great ocean is deep, immeasurable, 
nnfathomable. So also, great king, if the existence of the 
Perfect One be measured by the predicates of corporeal form :* 
these predicates of the corporeal form are abobshed in the 
Perfect One, their root is severeiS, they are hewn away like 
a palm-tree, and laid aside, so that they cannot germinate 
again in the future. Released, great king, is the Perfect 
One from this, that bis being should be gauged by the 
measure of the corporeal world : he is deep, immeasm-able, 
imfathomable as the gi-eat ocean, ' The Perfect One exists 
after death,' this ia not apposite; 'the Perfect One does not 
exist after death,* this also is not apposite; 'the Perfect One 
at once exists and does not exists after death,* this also is not 

Afterwards, what is here said of corporeal form, will be repeated in 
detail rcgardinfi tiie four other groups of elements, of which earthly being 
ia coDstituteil (tieuBstions, perceptions, conformations, cosBciousuesa}. 



280 TEE BAINT-^-THE EGO^THE NIRVANA. 

apposite; 'the Perfect One neither does nor does not exist 
after death/ this also is not apposite/' 

'^But Pasenadi, the king of Kosala^ received the nun 
Khem&'s discourse with satisfaction and approbation, rose 
from his seat, bowed reverently before Khemd the nun, 
turned and went away/^* 

We shall scarcely be astray in supposing that we discover 
in this dialogue a marked departure from the sharply defined 
line to which the course of thought confines itself in the 
previously quoted conversation between Buddha and M&lukya 
(p. 274, seq.). True, the question as to the eternal duration of 
the Perfect One is as little answered here as there, but why 
can it not be answered ? The Perfect One's existence is 
unfathomably deep, like the ocean : it is of a depth which 
terrestrial human thought with the appliances at its command, 
cannot exhaust. The man who applies to the strictly uncon- 
ditional predicates such as being and non-being, which are 
used properly enough of the finite, the conditional, resembles 
a person who attempts to count the sands of the Ganges or the 
drops of the ocean. 

When such a reason is assigned for the waiving of the 
question as to whether the Perfect One lives for ever, is not 
this very giving of a reason itself an answer ? And is not this 
answer a Yes ? No being in the ordinary sense, but still 
assuredly not a non-being: a sublime positive, of which 
thought has no idea, for which language has no expression, 
which beams out to meet the cravings of the thirsty for immor- 
tality in that same splendour, of which the apostle says : '' Eye 

* The texts relates then how the king at a later opportunity addressed 
the same questions to Buddha and. obtained from him word for word the 
same answers which he had received on this occasion from the nun 
Xhem&. 



EVASION OF QUESTIONS AS TO VT.TIMATE GOAL. 281 

liath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them 
that love Him." 

We here proceed to insert another passage,* which adopts a 
position on this question similar to that last qnoted. 

"' At this time a, monk named Yamaha had adopted the 
following heretical notion : ' I understand tbe doctrine taught 
hy the Exalted One to be this, that a monk who is free from 
sin, when his body dissolves, is subject to annihilation, that he 
passes away, that he does not exist beyond death.' " 

"Whoever names the absolute Nothing as tha goal, in which, 
according to the Buddhist creed, the life of the Perfect One 
ends, may learn from the opening words of this passage, that 
the monk Tamaka advocated this very interpretation and that 
lie had thereby been guilty of heresy. 

The vencirablo Sariputta undortakes to inafcruct him. 
"How thinkest thou, friend Yamaka, is the Perfect One 
^Tathfi.gata) identical with the corporeal form (i.e., does 
Buddha's body represent his true ego) ? Dost thou hold 
thia?" 

"I do not, my friend." 

"Is the Perfect One identical with the sensations? the 
perceptions ? the conformations, tho consciousness ? Dost 
thou hold this ?" 

" I do not, my friend," 

"How thinkest thou, friend Yamaka, is the Perfect One 
comprised in the corporeal form ( . . the sensations, and so 
ou) ? Dost thou hold this ?" 
" I do not, my friend," 

"Is the Perfect One separate from the corporeal form? 
Dost thou hold this ? 

* " Samyutta Nikiya," vol. i, fol. de, Beq. 



282 THE SAINT-^THE EQO^THE NJBVAkA. 



€€ 
€€ 



I do not, my friend/^ 

How thinkest thou, friend Yamaka, are the corporeal form> 
sensations, perceptions, conformations, and consciousness (in 
their aggregate) the Perfect One ? Dost thou hold this ? 

'^ I do not, my friend/' 

"How thinkest . thou, friend Yamaka, is the Perfect One 
separate from corporeal form, sensations, perceptions, con- 
formations, and consciousness ? Dost thou hold this ? 

" I do not, my friend/' 

''Thus then, friend Yamaka, even here in this world the- 
Perfect One is not to be apprehended by thee in truth. Hast 
thou therefore a right to speak, saying, ' I understand the 
doctrine taught by the Exalted One to be this, that a monk 
who is free from sin, when his body dissolves, is subject to- 
annihilation, that he passes away, that he does not exist beyond 
death'?" 

" Such, indeed, was hitherto, friend Sariputta, the heretical 
view which I ignorantly entertained. But now when I hear- 
the venerable Sariputta expound the doctrine, the heretical 
view has lost its hold of me, and I have learned the doctrine."' 

Thus are all attempts to define dialectically the ego of the 
Perfect One, repelled. The idea is certainly not that some 
other attempt might prove successful, but is kept in conceal- 
ment by S&riputta ; no more does the unavailingness of all 
these attempts to find a solution imply that the Perfect One 
does not exist at all. Thought, S&riputta means to say, has 
here reached an unfathomably deep mystery, on the solution of 
which it must not insist. The monk, who seeks the happiness 
of his soul, has something else to pursue. 

One who clearly and indefinitely renounced an everlasting 
future would speak in another strain ; behind the veil of the 
mystery there flies the longing for escape from opposing 



ETASIOH OP QVESTlOm AS TO ULTIMATE GOAL. 285 

reason, which declineB to admit the conceivableness of ever- 
lasting existence, the hope for an existence, which is beyond 
reason and conception. 

The terms, which can be applied to such an existence, are 
obvionsly exclusively negative. "There is, disciples, a 
state, where there is neither earth nor water, neither light nor 
air, neither infinity of space, nor infinity of reason, nor abso- 
Inte void, nor the co-extinction of perception and non-percep- 
tion, neither this world nor that world, both sun and moon. 
That, O disciples, I terra neither coming nor going nor standing, 
neither death nor birth. It is without basis, withont pro- 
on, without cessation : that is the end of sorrow."* 
"There is, disciples, an unborn, nnoriginated, uncreated, 
rmed. Were there not, disciples, this unborn, nn- 
originated, uncreated, unformed, there would be no possible 
exit from the world of the born, originated, created, formed."t 

These words seem to sound as if wo heard Brabmanica! 
philosophers talking of the Brahma, the unborn, intransient 
which is neither great nor small, the name of which ia " No,. 
No," for no word can exhaust its being. Yet these expres- 
sions, when viewed in the connection of Buddhist thought, 
convey something wholly different. To the Brahman the 
imcreated is so veritable a reality, that the rcahty of the 
created pales before it ; the created derives its being and life- 
Bolely from the uncreated. For the Buddhist the words 

there is an uncreated " merely signify that the created can 
free himself from the curse of being createdj — there is a path 

• "TJdana," fol. gbau. 

t " Ud&na," foi. gbau'. 

X Intho"DhRiuinapada" it is aaid (v. 383) : " If tliou hast learned tho 
deBtruction of the SaiikhS,ra, thon knoweat the uncreated." Mas Miiller 
(Introduction I.e., p, xliv) adda to thcBo words the remark ; " This surely 
■hows that even for Buddha a BOmethiag existed vhich is not made, and 



284: THE SAINT— TEE EOO—TBE NinvANA. 

from the world o£ the created out into dark endlessness. Does 
the path lead into a new existence ? Doea it lead into the 
Nothing? The Buddhist creed rests in delicate equipoise 
between the two. The longing of the heart that craves the 
eternal has not nothing, and yet the thought has not s 
something, whicli it might firmly grasp. Farther oif the 
idea of the endless, the eternal could not withdraw itself 
from belief than it has done here, where, like a gentle flatter 
on the point of merging in the Nothing, it threatens to evade 
the gaze. 

I close with a few sentences from the collections of aphorisms 
of ancient Buddhist literature. These aphorisms may add 
nothing new to what has been aaid, but they will show more 
clearly than all abstract treatment, what melodies were 
awakened in the circle of that ancient monastic order, when tlie 
chord of the Nirvfl,na was touched. 

" Plunged into meditation, the immovable ones who valiaiitlf 

TvLicli, therefore, is imperishable and eternal." It appears tome.lliatm 
con Sad in the exprcsBion another meanisg, and if we consider it lE 
connection with the Buddhist theory of the world, we must find ano&ia 
meaning : Let thine own aim be, to diBCOTer the cessation of iinpeni»> 
Jienee. If tLou knowest that, thou hast the higheat knowledge. Let 
otherB pursue the uncreated by their erroneous paths, which will nerer 
carry them beyond the realm of the created. As for thee let the attain- 
ment of tlie uncreated consist in this, that thou reachest the cessatioa of 
the created. In the "Alagaddupama Sutta" (Majjh. N.) we read: "Ti* 
behef which Boya : ' This is the world, this is the self (atta), this shall I 
dying become, firm, durable, ereilasting, unchangeable ; so shaU I be 
yonder in eternity' — is not that, O disciples, merely sheer folly P" — 
■" How can it be, sire, aught else but sheer folly p"— " How think ye tbcn, 
O disciples, is corporeal form everlasting or impermanent P" — and then 
there follow the familiar doctrines of the impermanence of the fire 
■complexes (vide supra, p. 21B), a significant commentary to the allegatioo. 
that the Baddbist asking after the eternal is the same as asking aft«r the 
'Cessation of the impermanent. 



THE UNCREATED. 285i 

stjruggle evermore, the wise, grasp the NirvUna, the gain which 
xio other gain surpasses/' 

'^ Hunger is the most grievous ilbiess ; the SankhHra ai^e the- 
^Xiost grievous sorrow ; recognizing this of a truth man attains 
"fclie Nirv&na, the supreme happiness/' 

^^ The wise, who cause no suffering to any being, who keep 
"fclieir body in check, they walk to the everlasting state : he who 
-h^JS reached that, knows no sorrow/' 

** He who is permeated by goodness, the monk who adherer 
"to IBuddha's teaching, let him turn to the land of peace, where- 
*^!"«fc:iisientness finds an end, to happiness/'* 

* «'Dhanmiapada," 23, 203, 225, 368. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE TENET OF THE PATH TO THE EXTINCTION i 
SUEFEEING. 



DnTlES TO OTHERS. 

Following the course whicli the rule of faith (i.e. 
Bacred truths) marks out for us, we have delineated, aa corre- 
Bponding with the second and third of these tenets, what WSJ 
be described as the metaphysic of Buddhism : the pictnre of 
the world bound in the chain of causality, of the sorrow-frau^ 
present, and the picture of the hereafter, in whicH origiuatioii 
and decease have come to a pause, the flame o£ sorrow has been 
extinguished. The fourth tenet of the sacred truths teaclieg 
ns to know the path which leads out of that world into tiw 
domain of deliverance ; the group of thoughts which it covers, 
may be termed the ethic of Buddbism.* 

* IF the sketch of Buddhism be dirided according to the two cate^^oriel 
ou whicli the division of the sacred tests proceeds, Shamma and Tinqii 
i.e.. Doctrine and Ordinance, etbio must be referred, acuording to tlw 
Buddhist view, to the head of " Doctrine," for not only does that briefM 
espression of the Doctrine, the sacred tratha, include within itself etlik 
in the last of tlie fonr tenets, but the inattera faUing under the atX)f*vt 
ethic have throughout found their place in the " Basket of the DnctriD*," 
i.e.,inthecompIex of the saered texts deaJiug with Dbammn. "UrdiunHb" 
as opposed to " Doctrine," is not to be understood in an ethicel, but in * 
legal sense ; it is ordinances to govern the associated life of the monulif 



ETHICAL SCBOLASTia. 287 

This, monks," so nms this tenet, " is the sacreil trutk o£ 
le path to the extinction of suffering : it is this sacred, eight- 
ild path, to wit : Eight Faith, Right Eeeolve, Bight Speech, 
ight Action, Eight Living, Eight Effort, Eight Thought, 
light Self-concentration.^' 

The ideas here placed before us gather significance and 

Bolour from the many disconrses of Buddha, in which the path 

bf Balvation leading to dehverance is described. That acholaatic 

^iparatns, from which Indian thought can never shako itself 

irliollj free, is employed in no sparing manner. Everything 

baa its estabUshed, ever recurring expression. Tirtuea and 

pices have their number : there ia a fourfold onward effort j 

lere are five powers and five organs of moral life, 

heretics and unbelievers also know the five impedimenta and 

he seven elements of illumination, but Baddha'a disciples 

done know, how that cinq becomes a dix, and this seven a 

mrteen.* 

More valuable than this scholastic, as an aid to understanding 

3W the moral presented itself to the Buddhist view, are the 

beautiful utterances of the poetical collections, as well as fables 

tnd. parables, above all the ideal form of Buddha himself as 

^e religious fancy of his disciples has sketched him. Not only 

in his final stage of earthly existence, but in hundreds of 

preceding existences has he unintermifctingLy arrived at all 

(hose perfections which were bringing him nearer and nearer 

to the supreme Buddhahood, and has in numberless displays of 

Invincible strength of will and devoted self-sacrifice created an 

cample for his believers. The components, which go to 

sike up this ethical ideal, obviously disclose at every step the 

lonastic character of Buddhist morality. The true holy life, 

I of the monk ; the worldly life is an imperfect, 

7 unsatisfying life, the preliminary step of the weak. 

• " Sa^yutta Ni]ta.ja," vol. iii, fol. pi', seq. 



288 DVTIES TO OTSERB. 

TtQ primary demand made upon tlie monk is not : thou Bbalt 
live in this world and make this world a something wltich is 
worthy of life — but it is : thou shalt separate thyself from this 
world. 

It is hardly necessary to say that any attempt to deduce 
from these enumerations of moral notions and sayinga and 
narrations a connected code of moralsj would be not less 
opposed to scientific truth than to scientific taste. Still, we 
find in tho sacred texts expressions which point to a definite 
path of thought traversing the wide range of moral action 
and passion, a distribution of all that tends to happiness and 
deliverance under certain leading heads. Above all there 
recur continually three categories, to some extent like the 
headings of three chapters on ethic : uprightness, self-con- 
centration, and wisdom.* In the narrative of Buddha's last 
addresses, the discourse in which he places before his followers 
the doctrine of the path of salvation, is time after time couched 
in the following words : " This is uprightness. This is self- 
concentration. This is wisdom. Pervaded by uprightness, 
self-concentration is fruitful and rich in blessing ; pervaded 
by self- concentration, wisdom is fruitful and rich in blessing; 
pervaded by wisdom, the soul becomes wholly free from all 
infirmity, from the infirmity of desire, from the inBrmity of 
becoming, from the infirmity of error, from the infirmity of 
ignoi'ance." These three ranges of moral living ore compare! 
to the stages of a journey : the end of the journey is deliver 
ance. The base of all is uprightness of walk, but invDrsolj 
outward righteousness receives its finish only through wisdom. 
"As hand washes hand and foot washes foot, so uprightsaij 
is purified by wisdom, and wisdom is purified by uprightnesi. 
Where there is uprightness, there is wisdom : where there if 
wisdom, there is uprightness. And the wisdom of the ni 
* Tbo Pali oipresHionB are : sila, samadhi (or citta), 



:i| 



UPBiaaTNEBS, SELF-REFREBBIOS, AUD WISDOM. 2Bl> 

luid the nprightness of the wise, have of all uprightness and 
wisdom in the world the highest value,^'* 

The will of a supreme lawgiver and ruler in the realm of 
the moral world, aa the ground on which the fact and force 
of a moral command rest, 13 no more a factor of Buddhiab 
thought than any bold claim, based on inherent necessity, 
of the universal, that the individual should be subordinate 
thereto. Nay more, the decided advantage of moral action 
over immoral arises wholly and solely from the consequence 
to tho actor himself, which is naturally and necessarily 
attached to the one course of action or the other. In the 
case reward — in the other punishment. " He who speahs 
or acts with impure thoughts, him sorrow follows, as the wheel 
follows tho foot of the draught horse. He who speaks or acts 
with pure thought, him joy follows, like his shadow, which 
does not leave him,"t " A peasant who saw a fruitful field 
and scattered no seed there, would not look for a crop. Even 
BO I, who desire the reward o£ good works, if I saw a fine field 
for action and did not do good, should not expect tho reward 
of works."! Thus morality has its solo weight in tluB, that it 
le means to an end, in the lower degree the means to the 
bnmble end of happy lifo here on earth and in tho forms of 
being yet to come, in the higher degree the means to the 
supreme and absolute end of happy dehverauce. 

We now pause in the next place to consider the requirement 
which Buddhism makes tho precursor and preliminary oF all 
higher moral perfection, the precept of " uprightness," and 
we find its purport expressed in a series of uniformly negative 
propositions. Upright is he, who keeps himself from alt 

• " Bonadaniln Stitta " {" Digha ytliiya "). 
+ " Dhammapada," 1, 3. 
X " Cariya PJtaka," 1, 2. 

19 



290 



DUTIES TO OTHERS. 



imparity in word and deed. In the different series of pro- 
hibitions, into Tvliioli tliis precept is analyzed in the sacred 
texts, a complex of fire commandments takes a special placs 
in the foreground, the regular observance of which oonstitata 
the " five-fold uprightness." Their substance is : — 

1. To kill no living thing ;* 

2. Not to lay hands on another's property ; 

3. Not to touch another's wife ; 

4. Not to speak what is untrue ; 

5. Not to drink intoxicating drints. 
For monks the injunction of absolute chastity was inserted 

instead of the third of these propositions, and there is added 
for them a long aeries of further prohibitions in whidi 
abstinence from worldly comforts and enjoyments, from «& 
worldly intermeddling as well aa self-indulgence, is laid down 
as their duty. In the detailed expositions, which we £nd 
appended to the several prohibitions, the limits of the pupa 
negative are not unfrequently trans gr ess ed.f It could not 
but happen that, whether the fundamental principle of 
Buddhist ethic admitted of morality being conceived as a 



* It is well known to what aa extreme Buddhiam, and Indian h&bit* 
of thought generally, tends to puah the regard for the life of eren tie 
smallest creatui'e. This regard lies at the bottom of tmnteroni 
regulations for the daily life of monks. A mouk may not drink itttrt 
in which animal life of any kind whatever is contained, and must not 
even as much aa pour it out on grasa or clay (" Pacittiya." 20, €3l. 
When monks wish to have silk cloths made for themselves, gilkfrearrri 
mnnnur and say : " It is our misfortune, it is out ill-fate, that we m 
obliged to kill many httio creatures for the sake of our living, for air 
wives' and children's sake." And Buddha forbids the monks on tii« 
ircpount tlie use of silk cloths (" Vinaya Pitaka," vol. iii, p. 234). 

t Cf. the extensive section hearing on this subject in the " S&m&fiSlplilI* 
SuttS, " (the Discourse on the Beward of Ascetism). 



PROHIBITIOH AND COMMAND. 



291 



positively consfcifcuted power or not, the "tKou shalfc not" 
shoald gradually transform itself for the lively moral con- 
Bciousness into " thou ahalt." In this way we find the first 
of these prohibitions, that of killing, construed in a manner 
which scarcely falls short of the Christian version of that 
command, which " was said by them of old time : thou shalt 
not kill." " How does a monk become a partaker of 
nprightness F" asks Buddha, and then proceeds himself to 
fdrniBh the ansjver in the following sentences : " A monk 
abstains from killing living creatures ; he refrains from 
cansing the death of hving creatures. He lays down tho 
stick; he lays down weapons. Ho is compassionate and 
tender-hearted : ho seeks with friendly spirit the welfare of 
all liviDg things. That is part of his uprightness." From 
the prohibition of backbiting a positive course is deduced 
in the same speech of Bnddha's in the followiog way : " Ho 
abstains from calumnioua conversation; he refrains from 
calamnioos conversation. What he has heard here he does 
not repeat there, to separate this man from that ; whiit he has 
heard there ho does not repeat here, to separate that man from 
this. He is the uniter of the separated, and the confirmer 
of the united. He enjoys concord; ho seeks to promote 
concord; he takes delight in concord; he is a speaker of 
.rconcord-producing words. This also is a part of his npright- 
jiesB." 

In every case it is quite true that the prohibition is far more 
comprehensive than the command ; the range of the command 
goes in but few cases beyond what is of itself implied in the 
^ntle influence which good men exercise by their mere 
presence without action. As it is peculiarly characteristic of 
woman's nature to diffuse such an influence silently around 
her, we shall perhaps be justified in attributing a trace of the 

19* 



292 DUTIEB T010TEER8. 

feminine to tliat type of morality to which Buddhism has given 
birth. 

Some who have endeavoured to bring Buddhism up to 
Christianity^ have given compassionate love of all creatures 
as the kernel of the Buddhist's pure morality. In this there is 
something of truth. But the inherent difference of the two 
moral powers is still apparent. The language of Buddhism has 
no word for the poesy of Christian love, of which that hymn of 
Paul's is full, the love which is greater than* faith and hope, 
without which one, though he spake with the tongue of men or 
of angels, would be a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal ; nor 
have the realities, in which that poetry assumed flesh and 
blood within the Christian world, had their parallel in the 
history of Buddhism. We may say that love, such as it 
displays itself in Buddhist morality, oscillating between 
negative and positive, approaches Christian love without 
actually touching it, in a way similar to that in which the 
beatitude of the Nirv&na, though fundamently wholly different 
from the Christian idea of happiness, does to a certain extent, 
as we saw, swing towards it. Buddhism does not so much 
enjoin on one to love his enemy, as not to hate his enemy ; it 
evokes and cherishes the emotion of firiendly goodness and 
tender-heartedness towards all creatures, a feeling in which the 
motive power is not the groundless, enigmatic self-surrender 
of love, but rather intelligent reflection, the conviction that 
it is thus best for all, and not least the expectation, that the 
natural law of retribution will allot to such conduct the 
richest reward. 

''He who keeps the angry passion,'' thus we read in the 
Dhammapada,* '' within his control, like a roUilig waggon, him 

• Verses 222, 223, 3 seq. (" Mahavagga," x, 3). 



LOVS AND COMPASSION. 



293 



I 



I call the real ■waggon-driver ; any otlier is only a rein-holder." 
" Let a man overcome anger bylnot becoming angry : lot a man 
overcome evil with good j lot a man overcome the paraimoniona 
by generosity, let a man overeomo the liar with tmth." " ' He 
lias abased me, he has struck me, ho has oppressed me, he haa 
robbed me' — they who do not entertain such thoughts, in such 
men enmity comes to an end. For enmity never comea to an 
end through enmity here below; it comes to an end by non- 
enmity ; this has been the rule from all eternity." 

The last of these verses is connected with a narrative, which 
is to he found in ,"tne of the canonical books,* and is worthy of 
the consideration of him who desires to know whether and how 
far tho Chi-iBtian thought, that " there ia no fear in love, but 
perfect love casteth out fear," recnrs in the ground of the 
Buddhist moral intelligence. 

On one occasion when a dispute arises in the band of his 
disciples, Buddha narrates to the discontented the history of 
King Long-grief, whom his powerful neighbour Brahmadatta 
had driven from his kingdom and deprived of all his possessions. 
Disguised as a mendicant monk the vanquished king fled with 
his wife from his home and sought safety in concoaimont at 
Benares, the capital of his enemy. There the queen bore him 
a son, whom he named Long-life : who became a clever hoy, 
proficient in all arts. One day Long-grief was recognized by 
one of his quondam courtiers and his place of concealment 
Ijotrayed to the king, Brahmadatta : thereupon the king 
ordered him and his wife to be led bound through all the 
streets of the town, and then liewn into four pieces outside the 
town. But Long-life saw how his father and mother were 
being led in chains through the town. And he went up to hia 
father, who said to him : " My son Long-life, look not too 



'■ MahiiTagga," s, 2, 



294 DVTIES TO OTHERS. 

fat and not too near. For enmity comea not to an end by 
enmity, my son Long-life; by non-enmity, my son Long-life, 
enmity comea to an end.'' 

Thereupon king Long-grief and his wife were put to death. 
But Long-life made the guards who were placed over the 
corpses drunk, and when they had fallen asleep, he bomt both 
the dead and walked with folded hands three times round 
the funeral pile. Then he went into tho forest and wept and 
wailed to his heart's content, then washed away his tears, went 
into the town, and took service in tho king's elephant-stalls. 
By hia beautiful singing he won tho favour of Brahmadatta, 
who mado him his trusted friend. One day he accompanied 
the king out hnnting. They two were alone : Long-life had so 
managed that the retinue took another road. The king became 
tired, laid his head in Long-life's lap, and soon fell asleep. 
Thereupon thought the youth Long-liEe : " this King Brahma- 
datta of Benares has done us ranch evil. He has taken away 
our army and baggage, and land, and treasure, and stores, and 
has killed my father and mother. Now is the time come tot 
me to satisfy my enmity." And he drew his sword from tho 
scabbard. But just then this thought occurred to the yonth 
Long-life : " My father has said to me, when he was being 
led away to execution : ' My son Long-life, look not too far and 
not too near. For enmity comes not to an end by enmity, mj 
son Eong-hfe ; by non-enmity, my son Long-life, enmity comes 
to an end.' It would not be right for me to transgress my 
father's words." So he put hia sword back in the scabbari 
again. The desire for revenge comes over him three times: 
three times the recollection of his father's last words overcomes 
his hatred. Then the king starts up from sleep : an evil dreUD 
has awakened him j he has dreamed about Long-life, that he i* 
taking his life with the sword. " Then the youth Long-life 
seized with his left hand tho head of King Brahmadatta of 



8T0RT OP LONQ-LSFE AND LOh'G-OUIEF. 



2931 



-fcSenares, and with his right he drew his sword, and he said to I 

^^rahmadatta, the king of Benares: 'I am the boy Long-li 

C> king, the aon of King Long-grief, of Koaala. Thou hi 

^lone lis much evil ; thou hast taken away our army and 

tsaggage, and landj and treasure, and storeB, and hast killed 

"xxiy father and mother. Now is the time come for me to 

^3-»tisfy my enmity.' Then the King Brahmadatta of Benares, 

^ff«ll at the feet of the youth Long-life, and said to the youth 

^Ijong-life : ' Grant ma my life, my son Long-life : grant me 

^tMj life, my aon Long-life !' 'How can I grant thee thy life, 

^D king ? It is thou, king, who mnst grant me life.' ' Then 

^grant thou me life, mj son Long-life, and I will also grant 

■fchee life.' Then the King Brahmadatta of Benares and the 

"fcoy Long-life granted each other life, gave each other their 

Xiands, and swore to do each other no harm. And King 

-^Brahmadatta of Benares said to the youth Long-life : ' My 

eon Long-life, what thy father said to thee before his death, 

^' Look not too far and not too near. For enmity comes not 

"to an end by enmity : by non-enmity enmity cornea to an end " 

— what did thy father mean by that?' 'What my father 

O king, said to me before his death : " Look not too far," 

signifies: "Let not enmity long continue;" that was what 

my father meant when he said before his death : "Look not 

too far." And what my father, king, said to me before hia 

death : " Not too near," signifies : " Fall not out too readily 

with thy friends ;" that was what my father meant when I 

he said to me before his death : " Not too near." And what 

my father, king, said to mo before his death : " For enmity 

comes not to an enil by enmity ; by non-enmity enmity comes 

to an end," signifies this : Thou, king, hast killed my father 

and my mother. Were I now, king, to seek to take thy 

life, then those who are attached to thee, O king, would take 




ays DUTIES TO others. 

my life, and those ^ho are attached to me, would toike th^ 
lives; thus our enmity would not come to an end by enni%. 
But now, ting, thou ha-at granted me life and I, ki&gf 
have granted thee life : thus by non-enmity has our enmilf 
come to an end. This is what my father meant when he a^ 
to mo before bis death : " For enmity comes not to an end 
by enmity ; by non-enmity enmity comes to an end." ' Then 
King Brahmadatta of Benares reflected: 'Wonderful! Astonieli- 
ing ! What a clever youth is this Long-life, that he can expound 
in such detail the meaning of what bis father has so briefly 
said.' And he gave bim all that bad belonged to his father, 
army and baggage, and land, and treasure, and store, and gave 
him bis daughter to wife." 

While Buddhism enjoins the forgiveness of the wrongs 
which others have done us, we ought not to overlook tbe 
thought which incidentally peeps out from this moral, that in 
the deabngs of the world forgiveness and reconciliation are 
a more profitable pobcy than revenge. The proposition that 
enmity comes not to an end by enmity is verified in a very 
substantial way in tbe case of the clever lad Long-life: 
instead of losing his life, be obtains a kingdom and a king's 
daughter to wife. 

The lesson of forgiveness and love of enemies finds a deeper 
and more beautiful expression in the pathetic narrative of 
prince KunSla,* the son of the great Buddhist king Asofca 
{circ. 260 b.c.). Knn&la — this name was given to him on 
acconnt of bis wonderfully beautiful eyee, which are as 
beautiful as the eyes of the bird Kunfila — lives far fromtha 
bustle of the court, devoted to meditation on impermaneDce. 
One of the queens is burning with love for the beautiful 

• The narrative is only known from northern Buddhist Bouroes, whW" 
are scarcely of very ancient orif;in. — Bumou/, Inlroduclion, p, IBS, H^ 



STORY OF KUsALA. 297 

^onth, bnt her solicitation and tie menaces of disdained 
be&nty are alike in vain. Thirsting for revenge, she contrives 
|k> have him sent to a distant province, and then issues an 
[trder to that quarter, sealed with the slyly stolen ivory seal of 
!^e king, for the prince's eyes to ho torn out. When the 
order arrives, no one can be prevailed upon to lay hands on the 
loble eyes of the prince. The prince himself offers rewards 
io any one who should be prepared to execute the king's 
krder. At last a man appears, repulsive to look on, who 
indertakea the performance. When, amid the cries of the 
weeping multitude, the first eye is torn out, Kun&la takes it 
n his hand and says : "Why seest thou no longer those forms 
m which thou wast just now looking, thou coarse ball of 
lesh? How they deceive themselves, how blamable are those 
^1b, who cling to thee and say : " This is I." And when 
Itis second eye is torn out, he says : " The eye of flesh, which 
is hard to get, has been torn from me, but I have won. the 
perfect, faultless eye of wisdom. The king has forsaken me, 
but I am the son of the highly exalted king of truth : whose 
bhild I am called." He ia informed that it is the queen, 
by whom the command concerning him was issued. Then 
be says : " Long may she enjoy happiness, life, and power 
who has brought me so great welfare." And he goes forth 
ft beggar with his wife ; and when he comes to his father's 
city, he sings to the lute before the palace. The king hears 
Knn&la's voice j he has him called into him, but when he sees 
Uie blind man before him, he cannot recognize his son. At 
last the truth comes to light. The king in the excess of grief 
pud rage is about to torture and kill the guilty queen. But 
KunS,la says : " It would not become theo to kill her. Do 
Bs honour demands and do not kill a woman. There is no 
Biigher reward than that for benevolence : patience, sire, has 



£98 



DUTIES TO OTHERS. 



been commanded by the Perfect One." And he falls at the 
king's feetj saying: "0 king, I feel no pain, and notwilli- 
standing the inhumanity which has been pi-actised on ine> 
I do not feel the fire of anger. My heart has none but ft 
kindly feeling for my mother, who has given the order to 
have my eyes torn oat. As snre aa these words are tnie, 
may my eyes again hecomo as they were " — and his eyes Bhone' 
in their old splendour as before. 

Buddhist poetry has nowhere glorified in more beautilol 
fashion, forgiveness, and the lovo of enemies than in tJ» 
narrative of Kun&la. But even hero we feel that cool m 
which floats round all pictures of Buddhist morality. The vixe 
man stauds upon a height to which no act of man can approacii. 
He resents no wrong which sinful passion may work him, bnt 
he even feels no pain under this wrong. The body, over 
which his enemies have power, is not himself. Ungrieved by 
the actions of other men, he permits his benevolence to Bow 
over all, over the evil aa well as the good. " Those who catua 
me pain and those who cause me joy, to all I am alike ; affeotioil 
and hatred I know not. In joy and sorrow I remain unmoredt 
in honour and in dishonour; throughout I am alike. Thotil 
the perfection of my equanimity."* 

The Buddhists had a peculiar penchant for systematic asd 
methodical devotion at fixed times to certain modes tui 
meditations, for which they previously put themselves with ias 
precision in appropriate postures. So we have roles which 
are highly characteristic of this almost extravagant, qvtisii 
peculiarity of Buddhist praxis, regarding the art and metW 
by which a man is to foster within himself the dispositioa of 
kindly benevolence to all beings in the universe, following >lic 
course of the four-quarters of the heavens. Buddha MJi- 
• " Csriyi PHaka," iii, 15. 



BENEYOLSUCE TO ALL BEZJVGB. 29!) 

After reflection, when I have retamed from the ' hegging 
excoTBion, I go into the forest. There I heap together the 
blades of grass or the leaves which are there to be found, and I 
sit down on them, with crossed legs, upright body, surrounding 
iny countenance with vigilant thought (as with an anreola). 
Tlias I remain, while I caase the power of benevolence, which 
fills my mind, to extend over one quarter of the world ; in tho 
same way over the second, the third, the fourth, above, below, 
.ikcross; on all sides, in all directions over the whole of the 
jSntire universe I send forth the power of benevolence, which 
fills my spirit, the wide, great, immeasurable {feeling} which 
knows naught of hate, which doeth no evil."* 

Whoever bears benevolence within him, possesses therein 

it were a magical power; men and beasts, when he lets fall 

On them a ray of this power, are thereby wondrously subdued 

id attracted. Devadatta, the Judas Iscariot among Buddha's 
disciples, lets loose on Buddha a wild elephant in a narrow 
street {p. IGO). "But the Exalted One exercised on tho 
cdephant N&l&giri the power of his benevolence. Then the 
elephant NalS.giri, struck by the Exalted One with the power 
of his benevolence, lowered his trunk, went up to where the 
Exalted One was, and stopped before bim."t On another 
occasion Ananda entreats the Exalted One, to be pleased to 
convert to the faith Roja, one of the stranger noblemen of the 

* There follow several repetitions of the same passage, in whicl* 
instead of " power of benevolence," there occur : power of pity, power 
of cheerfulness, power of equimimity {" Anguttara SikSja," vol. i, fol. 
Ml]). ; ef. vol. ii, fol. chn, whore the same spiritual exercises are attributed 
to Brahmanical ascetics also ; " Sa^iyutta Nik&ya," vol. ii, fol. tho' i 

Childer'a Dictionary," p. 621). 

+ " CuliaTagga," vii, 3, 13. The using of the power of beneTolenee 
DTcr the difi'erent kinds of snakes as a protection against anake.bite i» 
leecribed previously in v,C. 



^00 DUTIES TO OTHERS. 

lionse of the Mallas^ inimical to tho doctrine of Buddha. '^ It:^ 
is not difficult, O Ananda^ for the Perfect One to cause th^ 
Malla^ Koja, to be won to this faith and this order.*' Thereupon- 
the Exalted One extended to Roja^ the Malla^ the power of his. 
benevolence, rose from his seat and went into the house. AncL 
Boja, the Malla, struck by the Exalted One through the powerr 
of his benevolence, went, like a cow that seeks her young cal^ 
from one house to another, from one cell to another, and asked 
the monks: "Where, O venerable men, is he now dwelling, 
the Exalted One, the holy, supreme Buddha ? I desire to see 
him, the Exalted One, the holy, supreme Buddha.'** 

Place may be given in this connection to one of those brief 
sketches, in which the fancy of the &ithful loved to portray 
the conception of Buddha's previous existences. We possess a 
collection of such sketches and short stories, admitted into the 
sacred canon, which are arranged to illustrate the perfections 
or cardinal virtues of the later Buddha.t The following brief 
passage is devoted to the virtue of benevolence : — 

'^ I lived under the name of S4ma,t in a forest on the mountain 
slope . . . , I drew to myself lions and tigers through the 
power of my benevolence. I lived in the forest surrounded by 
lions and tigers, by panthers, bears, and wild buffaloes, by 
gazelles and boars. No creature is in terror of me, and I have 
no fear of any being. The power of benevolence is my footing, 
therefore I dwell on the mountain slope." 

It appeared important to follow up the idea of benevolence, 

♦ " Mahayagga," vi. 36, 4. 

t The usual enumeration of these perfections, whieh are, however, 
not aU represented in that text (the "Cariya Pitaka") by illostratiTe 
narratiTes, comprises ten yirtues ; beneficence, nprightneas, wishlessness, 
wisdom* power, patience, sincerity, stead&stness, benevolenee, equa- 
nimity. 

^ The narrator is Buddha himself. 



BENEVOLENCE TO ALL BEDfGS. I 

of forgiveness, of goodness even towards enomies, in the many 1 
vaoTioua forms in whicli it meets us, now in the garment of I 
sc>'beT reflectionSj again in the noble rote of pure and childlike- 
Poesy, and anon veiled in the surroundings of a quaint 
^^mtastic Methodism, It was not the emotion of a world- 
^**ibracing love, but this peaceful feeling of friendly harmony, 
^^laich gave its stamp to the common life of Buddha's disciples, 
^•"•^d if the Bnddhiat faith permits even tho animal world to 
l*^*-rticipatB in the blessing of this peace aiid this goodwill, this 
'-^^-iiy serve to remind us of the charming tales which Christian 
^^-gsnd has woven round a form like that of the saint Fran- 
'-^ » ECUS, the friend of all animals, and of all inanimate nature. 

Among the remaining emotional virtues, which are wont 

*^^^ be named in conjunction with those of uprightness aud 

I *^cnevoIeuce, the virtue of beneficence occupied the most 

I ^^rominent place in the didactic poetry of the Buddhists. 

It is significant how completely, in the conception of this poetry, 

"tlie picture of the highest ideal beneficence melts away into 

'that of renunciation, of self-sacrificing endurance. Whoever 

sets perfection before him as bia goal, must be prepared to 

unconditionally surrender everything, even what is dearest 

to him. The limits, which our conception would set to tho 

inherent propriety of the gift, are not here applicable; without 

any regard to what is the measure of the real benefit thereby 

e.Ttendcd to the recipient of the gift, the legends set before 

na as a duty, the most unbounded generosity, pushed even to- 

the extreme of self- destruction.* Though penances, as they 



I 



• On the question, aa to wliat, apart from the moralistic poetic of 
legends, waa the praatical performance of beneBcenne in the actnal life 
of tho early order, we refer on the one hand o the remarks on the 
subject in the First Part (p. 143, 166, aeq.), and on the other to the Part 
on the Lii'c of the Order. We cannot refrain from tliinliiBg, that the 



'302 DUTIES TO OTHERS. 

were then practised among the ascetics of India, were discard ^===am ^ 
by Buddha as " vexatious, unworthy, unprofitable/* yet motiv^ ^^i 
of the most closely kindred character maintained their plf^ ^^^^ 
in Buddhist moral poetry: if Brahmanical poems tell ,^i 

marvellous self -mortifications, by which the sages of the p«=3^ st 
obtained a power portentous to the gods themselves, it is 

not far to go from them to the Buddhist narratives of thci^»> ae 
displays of unlimited generosity, crowned with immeasura'Bzz^le 
heavenly reward, in which the proper element of beneficec^L ^e 
vanishes into nothing behind that of ascetic self-sacrifice. 

Thus, for instance, in the narrative of Prince Yessant£ft«'K7-a, 
i.e., the later Buddha in the last but one of his eart"I::»-ly 
existences.* The king's son was unjustly driven from -fclie 
kingdom by the people by a mistake. He gave his l^a*st 
treasures, even the waggon on which he rode, and the hor-^^s 
to beggars, and he went on with wife and children through -fcX^e 
burning heat on foot. '^ When the children saw trees bearixig 
fruit in the forest, they wept, longing for the fruit. Wb-^^ 
they saw the weeping children, the lofty, nughty trees bov^^^ 
down of themselves and came down to the children.*' At l^tst 
they came to the Vanka mountain ; there they lived as hernci.i*'^ 
in a leaf -hut. ^' I and the princess Maddi, and the two childr€>:»^> 
J&li and Kanh&jina, dwelt in the hermitage, each dissipating 
the sorrow of the others. I remained in the hermitage ^^ 
guard the children; Maddi gathered wild fruits and broug^fa-^ 
them to us there for food. When I was there dwelling in th-^ 
forest, there came a beggar, who asked me for my children*-' 
the two, J&li and Kanh^jinft. When I saw the beggfarwh^^ 

treatment of beneficence in Buddhist morals would have been more somu^ 
and less prolix, if it were not that here a virtue was being handled, i^ 
a position to practise which, the pauper monk conld scarcely ever be. 
* " Caiijk Pitaka," i, 9. Cf. Hardy, Manual, 118. 



SENEFICENOE—TBB STORT OF TEBSANTAIU. 



303 



I come, I smiled, and. I took my two childron and gave 

lem to the Brjiliman. Wben I made over my childrea to 

\jaka the Brahman, the earth qnaked, the forest-crowned 

tern shoot. And again, it came to pass, that the god 

i came down from heaven in tho form of a Brahman; 

1 asked me for Maddt, the princess, the virtuous and true. 

hen I took Maddl by the hand, fiEed her hands with water,* 

id I gave Maddi to him with eheerfnl heart. When I gave 

Im Maddi, the gods in heaven were glad, and again the 

wth quaked, and the forest -crowned Mem shook. Jftli and 

lajina, my daughter, and Maddi, the princess, the true 

^jfe, I gave away, and I counted it not loss so that I might 

1 the Biiddhahood." 

Another of these narratives of Buddha's past existences is 

i following " Story of the wise hare."-|- 

"And again in. another life I was a hare, that lived in a 

poantain forest : I ate grass and vegetables, loaves and frnits, 

jid did no being any harm. An ape, a jackal, a young otter, 

ftnA Ij we dwelt together and we were seen together early and 

mtc. But I instructed them in duties and taught them what 

U good and what evil : abstain from evil, incline to good. On 

[Oly days when I saw the moon full, I said to them : * to-day 

■ the holy day ; have alms in readiness that ye may dispense 

pern to the worthy. Give alms according to merit and spend 

I holy day in fasting,' Then said they : ' So bo it,' and 

Kirding to their power and ability they got their offerings 

idy and looked for one who' might be worthy to receive 

But I sat down and sought in my mind for a gift, 

Irliich I was to offer : ' If I find a worthy object, what is my 



• For the Bolenm aarrender oE Maddi, with a libation of water ai 

e completion of a dedication. 

t Tho narrator ia Buddha hima olf .—Canjid PUaka, i, 10. 



804: DUTIES TO OTHERS. 

gift to be ? I have not sesame^ nor beans^ nor rice, nor 
butter. I live on grass only ; one cannot oflfer grass. If a 
worthy person comes to me and asks me to give him food, 
then I shall give him myself; he shall not go hence empty- 
handed.' Thereupon Sakka (the king of gods) discerned my 
thoughts, and came in the form of a Brahman to my cover to 
put me to the test and see what I would give him. When I 
saw him, I spake to him joyfully these words : ^ *Tis well that 
thou comest to me to seek food. A noble gift, such as hath 
not erst been given, shall I give thee this day. Thou 
observest the duties of uprightness ; it is not thy character 
to inflict pain on any creature. But go gather wood and 
kindle a fire; I will roast myself; roasted thou mayest 
consume me.* He said : ^ So be it/ and he gladly gathered 
wood and stacked it in a great heap. He put living coals in 
the middle and a fire was soon kindled ; then he shook off 
the dust, which covered his powerful Kmbs, and sat down 
before the fire. When the great heap of wood began to send 
up flame and smoke, I leaped into the air and plunged into 
the midst of the burning fire. As fresh-water quenches the 
torment of heat for him who dives into it, as it gives vitality 
and comfort, so the flaming fire into which I leaped, like fresh- 
water, quelled all my torment. Cuticle and skin, flesh and 
sinews, bones, heart and ligaments, my whole body with all 
its members, I have given to the Brahman.'^ 

Buddha's last existence, the days of attained sanctity, of 
itinerancy and teaching, are not adorned in the narratives of 
the order with any such marvels of self-sacrifice. Good works 
are for him to do, who is pressing on to perfection. The 
Perfect One himself " hath overcome both shackles, good and 
evil/'* 

* " Dhammapada," 412. Buddhism here stands wholly on the ground 
of the Brahmanical philosophy which preceded it, videBajfTtk, p. 48. 



MORAL SELF-VULTUBE. 



MOKAL Self-cultoke. 

The moBfi important part of moral action lioea not lie 
according to Buddhist notions in dntiea which arc owing 
externally, from man to man, or more correctly speaking, 
from each being to the being nearest him, but in the scope 
of Lis own inner life, in the exercise o£ incessant self- 
diBcipline : " Step by step, piece by piece, moment by 
moment, must he who is wise, cleanse his ego from all 
impurity, as the goldsmith refines silver."* 

The ego, whose reality remained to metaphysics an unsolved 
enigmoj here becomes for ethical speculation a determinate 
power, before which everything external to it vaniahea into 
tlie backgi-ound as something foreign. To iind tho ego is 
acknowledged to he the worthiest object of all search, to make 
a friend of the ego tho truest and highest friendship. " By 
thine ego spur on thy ego j by thine ogo explore thine ego j 
BO shalt thon, monk, well guarding thine ego and vigilant, 
live in happiness. For tho protection of the ego is the ego ; 
the refuge of tho ego is tho ogo ; therefore keep thy ego in 
BabjectioHj as a horse-breaker a noble steed." " First of all let 
a man establish his own ego in the good ; then only can he 
instruct others ; thus shall the wise remain free from misery ."t 

We have already {p. 288) touched those three leading notions, 
constituting in a certain manner a succession of steps, into 
which Buddhist ethic has divided the different ranges of moral 
action: uprightness, self-concentration, and wisdom. To the 
duties of internal watchfulness, self-edacation, and self-purifi- 
cation, on the part of tho ego, the scholastic system allots a 

* "Dliammapada," 239. 

f " Dhammnpttdo," 379, BCq., 158. 



306 MORAL SELF' CULTURE. 

middle place, between the first and second of these ranges. 
External rectitude is the foundation, from which alone 
proceeding, can those internal and deeper tasks of morality 
be performed, and these tasks again occupy a preparatory 
position as the regards the last, finishing forces of spiritual effort, 
self-concentration and wisdom. The standard expressions, 
by which the language of the schools describes the class of 
moral duties in question and inserts them in the described 
manner in that threefold class, are the headings : government 
of the senses, vigilance and attention, to which is further 
added the idea of contentment (absence of the feeling of 
want).* We must keep the eye and all other senses in 
subjection, so that they may not, by dwelling on external 
objects, find pleasure in them and convey to the ego impres- 
sions which endanger its peace and purity. We are to direct 
all our movements with vigilant consciousness ;f whether we 
walk or stand, whether we sit or lie down, whether we talk or 

* In the Pali : indriyasamvara, satisamp&janna, santutthi. The closer 
examination of these notions is to be found in the S^man&aphala Sutta 
and recurs elsewhere very frequently in the sacred texts. 

t With this are connected several half-bodily, half-spiritual exercises* 
fostered by Buddhism with such great fondness, which, it seems 
probable, occupied a very prominent place in the monks' allotment 
of time. We here select only one of them, "vigilance in inhaling 
and exhaling." "A monk, O disciples, who dwells in the forest, 
or dwells at the foot of a tree, or dwells in an empty chamber, sits 
down with legs crossed, body bolt upright, surrounding his coim- 
tenance with watchful thought. He inhales with consciousness, he 
•exhales with consciousness. If he draws in a long breath, he knows 
■* I am drawing in a long breath.' If he exhales a long breath, he knows 
•* I am exhaling a long breath.* If he draws in a short breath he knows 
' I am drawing in a short breath,' and so on. Buddha calls this exercise 
profitable and enjoyable; it drives away the evil that rises in man 
(" Vinaya Pitaka," vol. iii, p. 70, seq.). If the disciples are asked, how 



INTERNAL WATCEFULNEBS. 



307 



P 



be silent, we are to tiink of what we are doing, and take cara 
that it bo done becomingly. We shonld need nothing, but 
what we cany on our persons, like the bird in the air which 
has no treasure, and carries nothing with it bnt its wings, 
which bear it whithersoever it wishes. 

In contact with people of worldly occupation the most 
FCmpuIous caution must be observed, " As one, who has no 
shoes, walks over thorny ground, watchfully picking his steps, 
so let the wise man walk in the village."* "As the bee 
damages not the colour or perfume of the flower, but sucks its 
juice and flies on, so let the wise man walk in the village. "t 
When a man has completed his bogging excursion through the 
village, he is to examine himself, whether he has remained free 
from all internal dangers. Buddha says to SftriputtaiJ "A 
monk, Sflripntta, must thus reflect : ' On my way to the village, 
when I was going to collect alms, and in the pliices where I 
solicited alms, and on my way back from the village, have I in 
the forms which the eye perceives,^ experienced pleasure, or 
desire, or hatred, or distraction, or anger in my mind ?' If 
the monk, Sfiriputta, on thus examining himself, discovers : 
' On my way to the village, etc., I have in the forms which 
the eye perceives, experienced pleasure, etc.,' then must this 
monk, SAriputta, endeavour to become free from these evil. 



BttddLn spends the rainy scaeon, tJioy are to answer, 'Buried Jn watob- 
fulness of inhaling and exhaling, O friends, the Exalted One is wont to 
sqiend his time during the rainy season.' " — Sam^itta Sikdga, vol. iii, 
fol. vl. 

• " Theragfithil," fol. gii. 

t " Dliaiamapada," 49. 

J Piijdapitaparisuddliifiutta (Majjhima Nikaya). 

§ There follow after tliis repetitions of the same question in reference 
to " the sounds which the ear hears/' and the other senses with their 
objects. 

20* 



808 MORAL aELF'CULTUBB. 

treacheroaa emotions. But if the monk S&riputta, who submits 
himself to this test, finds : * I have not experienced pleasure, 
etc.,* then should this monk, S&riputta, be glad and rejoice : 
Happy the man who has long accustomed his mind to good ! '' 
'' As a woman or a man,'' it is said in another Sutta,* '* who is 
young and takes a delight in being clean, looks at his face in a 
bright, clear mirror, or in a clear stream of water, and, if he 
discovers therein any smudge or spot, takes pain to remove 
this smudge or spot, but if he sees therein no smudge or spot, 
is glad : ' That's good ! I am clean !' so also the monk, who 
sees that he is not yet free from all those evil, treacherous 
emotions, must endeavour to become free from all those evil, 
treacherous emotions. But if he sees that he is free from all 
those evil, treacherous emotions, this monk is to be glad and 
rejoice : Happy the man, who has long accustomed his mind to 
that which is good !" 

Incessantly and ever in new forms, we find the admonition 
repeated, not to take the show of moral action for the reality, 
not to remain clinging to the external, when salvation can 
come alone from within. It is all very well to guard the 
eye and ear from evil, but mere not-seeing and not-hearing 
avail nothing ; else were the blind and deaf the most perfect.f 
The purpose, with which we speak and act, is decisive of the 
value of word and action ; the word alone is worthless, where 
acts are wanting : ^^►Our whole existence depends on our 
thought; thought is its noblest factor; in thought its state 
consists. He who speaks or acts with impure thoughts, him 
sorrow follows, as the wheel follows the foot of the draught 
animal. Our whole existence depends on our thought ; 
thought is its noblest factor; in thought its state consists. 

* Anumdnasutta (Majjliiina Nikaya). 
t Indriyabliavaiiasutta (Majjh. JS".). 



MARA, TBE EVIL DUE. 



309 



I 



He wlio speaks or acts with pure thoughts, him joy follows, 
like the shadow which never forsakes him." "He who speaks 
many irise words, but does not act up to them, the fool is like 
a herd who counts the cows of others ; he has no share ia the 
nobility of the monks. He who speaks only a few wise words, 
but walks in the law of truth, who gets rid of love and hate, 
and of LEifatnation, who has knowledge and whose mind has 
found deliverance, who hankers after nothing in heaven or on 
earth, he has part in the nobility of the monks,"* * 



Maea, the Evil One, 

The toil, by which the spirit seeks purity, rest, and deliver- 
ance, pictures itself to the religious consciousness of Buddhism 
aa a straggle against a hostile power. This power of the evil, 
of the sorrow, which opposes a resistance to man's escape from 
its shackles, — whence comes it ? Buddhist thought holds 
aloof from this problem. If the question of the "origin of 
sorrow "\ be asked, this question merely directs itself to ascer- 
taining how sorrow originates in us, by what sluice the world- 
deluging stream of sorrow- fraught impermanence finds its 
way into om- existence. But if one were to seek to know, 
whence it comes that there is sorrow at all. Buddhism would 
add this to the too inquisitive questions, on which the Exalted 
One has revealed nothing, because they are not profitable to 
happiness. To be curious about the origin of evil and of 
sorrow would amount to nothing less than prying into the 
origin of the universe, for the innermost essence of the world 



* " Dhammapadtt," 1, 2, 19, 20. 

t Eemembor the Becoad of the four sacred tnitha and the formula of 
cauBEiUtj. 



810 2iARA, TEE EVIL ONE. 

according to Buddliism consists in this, that it is subject to 
evil, that it is a state of continual sorrow. 

It is not, therefore, as the one by whom evil has come into 
the world, but rather as the supreme lord of all evil, as the- 
chief seducer to evil thought, word and deed, that the creed 
of the Buddhas looks upon Mftra, the Evil One, the Prince of 
Death, for Mftra means death.* The kingdom of this world 
with its pleasures is the kingdom of death. In the highest of 
the spheres of the universe, which are given over to the 
dominion of pleasure, he rules with his hosts as a powerful 
god j thence he comes down to earth, when it is his object to 
. attack the kingdom of Buddha and his saints. 

To simple faith M&ra is a personal existence, a personality, 
limited by the confines of time and space, every whit as real 
as Buddha, as all men and all gods. But philosophic thought, 
which sees the enemy of peace and happiness in the impersonal 
power of a amiversal law swaying the external world, regu- 
lating origination and decease, has naturally a tendency either 
to push this conception of M&ra into the background or to 
amplify his personal existence into a universal. Without 
M&ra's actually ceasing to be looked upon as a person, the 
limits of his being become so wide as to have room to embrace 
the contents of the whole universe subjected to sorrow. 
Wherever there is an eye and form, wherever there is an ear 
and sound, wherever there is thinking and thought, there is 
M&ra, there is sorrow, there is world.f Rfirdha says to 
Buddha : J " Mara, M&ra, thus people say, O sire. Wherein, 
O sire, consists the being of M3;ra ? '' '^ Where there is cor- 

* Concerning the mythological elements, which have supplied the 
materials for the conception of MS.ra, we refer to p. 54 seq., note p. 89. 
t " Samyutta Nik&ya/' vol. ii, fol. khu. 
J Ibid, vol. i, fol. no. 



MARA, TBE BVIL OWE. 



311 



poreal form*, O Radha, there is M^ra (Death), or he who kills, 
or he who is dying. Therel'ore, Iladha, look upon corporeal 
form as boiiig Miraj or that it ia he who kills, or he who is dying, 
or sickness, or an abscess, or a wounding dart, or imparity, or 
impure existence. Whoever regards it thus, understands it 
correctlj-." 

Mftra is not everlasting, as there is nowhere in the domain of 
origination and decease an everlasting permanent. But as 
long as worlds revolve in their orbits and beings die and are 
bom again, new M^ras ai'e evermore appearing with ever new 
hosts of gods, who are subject to them ; and thus we may say 
that the existence of Mara is actually eternal in that sense in 
which alono eternal existence can be conceived by Buddhist 
speculation. 

In those discourses and legends which speak of M&ra, the 
tempter, wo meet with none of that gloomy tragedy with 
which we are accustomed to fancy the diabolical, deadly foe 
of good BLUTonnded. The colours and grand outlines for the 
dark form of a Lucifer were not at the command of the 
Buddhist monk -poets. They narrate petty, often poorly 
enough conceived, legends of the attacks of Mfira on Baddlia 
and his pious followers, how ho appears at one time as a 
Brahman, and at another as a husbandman, at another as an 
elephant-king, and in many other different forms comes to 
shake their sanctity by temptations, their faith and their 
knowledge by lies.f 

If a holy man makes his excursion for alms in vain and 



• Then similarly : whero aonsation ia— where perception ia — where 



t A Tew such narratirea have already been touolied upon, sapra* 
p. 116, 258, The " Sariiyutta Mik&ya" gives awhole collection of them 
n the Maruaigiyutta. 




812 ILiBA, THE EVIL ONE. 

nowhere obtains a gift, it is M&ra's work ; if the people in 
a village ridicule pious monks with derisive gestures, M&ra 
has entered into them ; when Ananda in the critical moment 
before Buddha's death neglected to ask the Master to prolong 
his earthly existence to the end of this mundane period, it so 
happened because M&ra had bewildered his mind. '^ At one 
time,*' as we read,* '^ the Exalted One was Kving in the land of 
Kosala, in the Himalaya, in a log-hut. When the Exalted 
One was thus living retired in hermitage, this thought entered 
his mind : * It is possible really to rule as a king in righteous- 
ness, without killing or causing to be killed, without practising 
oppression or permitting oppression to be practised, without 
suffering pain or inflicting pain on another/ Then MS.ra, the 
Evil One, perceived in his mind the thought which had arisen 
in the mind of the Exalted One, and he approached the Exalted 
One and spake thus : ' May the Exalted One, O sire, be pleased 
to rule as a king, may the Perfect One be pleased to rule 
as a king in righteousness, without killing or causing to be 
killed, without practising oppression or permitting oppression 
to be practised, without suffering pain or inflicting pain on 
another/ Buddha challenges him : ^ What dost thou see in me, 
thou Evil One, that thou speakest thus to me ? ' M&ra says : 
' The Exalted One, O sire, has made the fourfold miraculous 
power his own — : if the Exalted One,»0 sire, desired, ho 
could ordain that the Himalaya, the king of mountains, should 
become gold, and it would turn to gold/ Buddha motions 
him away : what would it profit the wise man, if he possessed 
even a mountain of silver or of gold ? ' He who has com- 
prehended sorrow, whence it springs, how can he bend himself 
to desire ? He who knows that earthly existence is a fetter in 

* " Samyuttaka NiUya," vol. i, fol. ghk\ 



THE LAST STAGES OP THE PATH OF SALVATION, ETC. 3IH 

t'lis world, Icjfc Lim practise that winch sets liiin free therefrom.* 
Then M^ra, the Evil One, saiil, ' ITie Exalted One knows mo, 
the Perfect One knows me,' and disconcerted and disheartened 
ho rose and went away " — the invariahiB obvions conclusion 
uE these nari-atives : Buddha looks through the Evil One and 
turns hia temptations to naught. 

Of the precautions which the religious should adopt with 
constant vigilance against the machinations of Mara, Buddha 
speaks in the fable of the tortoise and the jackal.* There was 
once a tortoise, that wont in the evening to the bank of a river 
to seek her food. And there went also a jackal to the river to 
seek for prey. When the tortoise saw the jackal, she hid all 
her limbs in her shell and dived quietly and fearlessly into the 
water. The jackal ran and waited until she should put forth 
one of her limbs from her shell. But the tortoise did not 
move ; so tho jackal was obUged to give up hia prey and 
go away. " Thus, O disciples, Mara also is constantly and 
evonnore lurking for you and csogitating : ' I shnll gain 
access to them by the door of their eye — or, by the door 
of their ear, or of their nose, or of their tongue, or of their 
body, or of their thought, I shall gain access to them.' 
Therefore, disciples, guard the doors of your senses , . . 
then will Miira, the Evil One, give it up and forsake yon, 
' when he finds he cannot find any access to you, as the jackal 
was obliged to depart from the tortoise." 



The Last Staqes op the Path of Saltatios — Absthactioks — 

SaJNTS and BtTDDHAS. 

Thus is the inimical purpose of Milra in league with the 
I inimical natural law of the sorrow-causing chain of causes and 
• " Saipyattaka Nikitya," vol. ii, fol. ja. 



814 THE LAST BTAQE8 OF THE PATH OF SALVATION, ETC, 

effects. In the wilderness of the sankhdras, of restless, 
substanceless procession^ in ever surging and undulating 
darkness^ the solitary combatants standi who struggle to 
find the exit from this labyrinth of sorrow. The struggle 
is neither slight nor brief. From that moment forward, when 
first the conviction dawns upon a soul, that this battle must be 
fought, that there is a deliverance which can be gained — from 
that first beginning of the struggle up to the final victory, 
countless ages of the world pass away. Earth worlds and 
heavenly worlds, and worlds of hells also, states of torment, 
arise and pass away, as they have arisen and passed away from 
all eternity. Gods and men, all animated beings, come and 
go, die and are bom again, and amid this endless tide of all 
things, the beings who are seeking deliverance, now advancing 
and victorious, and anon driven back, press on to their goaL 
The path reaches beyond the range of the eye, but it has an 
end. After countless wanderings through .worlds and ages- 
the goal at last appears before the wanderer^s gaze. And in 
his sense of victory there is mingled a feeling of pride for the 
victory won by his own power. The Buddhist has no god ta 
thank, as he had previously no god to invoke during his 
struggle. The gods bow before him, not he before the gods. 
The only help, which can be imparted to the struggle, comes 
from those like himself, from those who have gone before, the 
Buddhas and their enlightened disciples, who have wrestled as 
he now wrestles, and who cannot, it is true, grant him the 
victory, but can show him the path to victory. 

Buddhism, closely following a common feature of all Indian 
religious life which preceded it, regards as stages preparatory 
to the victory which is won, certain exercises of spiritual 
abstraction, in which the religieux withdraws his thoughts 
from the external world with its motley crowd of changixi^ 



THE BTKUOOLE FOR SAPP1NE8S. 315. 

forma, to antic-Ipate in the stillness of liis own ego, afar from 
pain and pleasure, the cessation of the impermanent, Tho 
devotion of abstraction is to Buddhism wli.it prayer ia to other 
religions. 

It cannot he doubted that protracted and methodically 
pursued efforts to superinduce states of abstraction have 
actually formed a very prominent element in the apiritual 
life of the monks. The prose as well as the poetry of the 
eacred texts bears ample testimony to this. Monks who by a 
noisy manner disturb their brothers at moments of abstraction 
are reprimanded ; a careful housekeeper, when he assigns the 
brothers their resting places, does not omit to arrange for those 
of them who are endowed with tho gift of abstraction, a separate- 
lodging, so that they may not be disturbed by others,* And 
also through the poems of the monk-poots there rans a vein 
of delight in the solitude of the forest cheered by tho blessing- 
of holy abstraction. "If before me, if behind me, my eyo 
sees no other, it is truly pleasant to dwell alone in tho forest. 
Come, then ! Into solitude will I go, into the forest, which 
Bnddha praises : therein it is good for tho solitary monk to 
dwell, who seeks perfection. In the sUa forest rich in blossoms, 
in the cool mountain cave, will I wash my body and walk 
alone. Alone without comrades in the lovely forest — when 
Bhall I have gained the goal? when shall I be free from sins?"-!' 
" When the thunderclouds in heaven beat the drum, when tho 
floods of water choke the paths of the air, and the monk in a 
tnonntain cave surrenders himself to abstraction, ho can have 
no greater joy. On banks of flower-bestrewn streams, which 



• " MahiLvagga," v, 6 ; " Cullavagga," iv, 4, 4. 

t " Theragitha," Eayiug of the Etaviliirija Thera (fol. khe). 



316 THE LAST STAOES OP THE PATH OP 8ALVATI02f, ETC. 

are garlanded with motley forest-crowns, he sits joyfully wrapt 
in abstraction : he can have no higher joy/'* 

The descriptions in the prose Sutras which deal with these 
conditions of the mind, although the scholastic accessories 
of doubtful or imaginary psychological categories materially 
impair the objectivity of the picture, leave no room to doubt 
that here circumstances of a pathological kind also, as well as 
qualities which a sound mind is in a position to induce, must 
have played a part. The predispositions to these were super- 
abundantly at hand. In men who were by the power of a 
religious idea torn from existence in the regular relations of 
home-life, the physical consequences of a wandering mendicant 
life, combined with spiritual over-excitement, exhaustion of 
the nervous system, might easily produce a tendency to morbid 
phases of this kind. We hear of hallucinations of the sight 
as well as of the hearing, of '' heavenly visions'' and '^ heavenly 
sounds.''t From the days when Buddha aspired to enlighten- 
ment, it is related how he sees '' a ray of light and the vision 
of forms," or even a ray of light alone and again forms only.J 
The appearances of deities also, or of the tempter of whom 
the legends have so much to relate, betray the existence of 
hallucinations. Still, visions of this kind are, comparatively 
speaking, isolated occurrences. The normal type of '^ self- 
concentration " was that which appears in the '^ four stages of 
abstraction (jhana)," mentioned and described times without 
number. In a quiet chamber, but oftener in the forest, a man 
sat down, ''with crossed legs, body erect, surrounding his 
-countenance with vigilant thought." Thus he persevered in 

* " Theragatha," saying of the Thera Bhuta (foL kkA'). 
t :E,g., Mahalisuttanta (Digha N.). 
X Upakilesiya Suttanta (Majjhima N,), 




SELF-COS CENTIUTION. 317 

loDg-cDntiDued motionlessneaa of body, and £reed Iiimaeif 
SQccessively from the distarbing elements o£ " desire and evil 
emotions," of '* deliberation and reflection," of joy and sorrow ; 
at last oven breathing- stopped. Thus the spirit became 
"collected, purified, refined, free from imparity, free from 
BID, pliant, ready to bo wronght, firm and nnfliuching." This 
Has the condition in which the sense of clairvoyant knowledge 
of the rationale of the universe became active. As tho secret 
of creation revealed itself to Christian enthusiasts in moments 
■of ecstasy, so in this case men imagined they looked back 
over the past of their own "ego throngb countless periods of 
transmigration, imagined they saw throngliout tho imiverse 
wandering beings, how they aro dying and being bom again, 

jined they could penetrate the tbonghfcs of others. Even 
the possession of miraculous powers, of the capability of 
Vanishing and reappearing, of the capability of maltiplying 
the individual ego, is alleged in connection with this state of 
abstraction. In addition to this there is talk of an otherwise 
ftcquired concentration of the mind, which, without pathological 
ingredients, rests solely on a progressive and methodical ab- 
straction from tho plurality of the phenomenal world.* "As 
this bouse of Migaramiitil is empty of elephants and cattle, of 
BtoUioDB and mares, empty of silver and gold, empty of the 
Crowds of men and women, and it is not empty only in one 

ect, Tiz.j not empty of monks, so also Ananda tho monk 
gets rid of tho notion ' man,' and thinks only on the notion 
* forest,' . . . then ho perceives that emptiness baa entered 
i notions in respect of tho notion 'village,' and emptiness 
bas entered in respect of the notion 'man;' non-emptiness is 
ftlone present in respect to tho notion ' forest,' " And next 
the notion " forest " also ia got rid of, so that the notion. 
* Culasniiiialasutfa (Majjli, N.). 




•318 THE LAST SFAOES OF THE PATH OF SiLFATION, ETC. 

, ■*' eartli" ia attained witli the omission of all the multitudinous 
■variety of the earth's surface ; thence the mind mounts iu a 
similar way to the notion of " endlessness of space," of "end- 
lessneSB of reason," of " nothing-whatever-noss," step by step 
approaching deliverance,* 

As that which accomplishes deliverance ia wisdom, i.e., the 
linowledge of the Doctrine, the knowledge principally of tha 
i'our sacred trntha, wisdom and abstraction lend each otW 
aintnal support and aid : " There ia no abstraction where 
ia not wisdom, no wisdom where there is not abstmction. 
Truly he ia near the Nirvana, in whom abstraction dwells and 
wisdom. "t 

Side by side with the doctrine of abstractions there was 
another doctrine matured, which, like it, had as its scope the 
last stages of the path of deliverance : the theory of the four 
graded classes in which hehevers who are approaching the 
goal are arranged, according to the greater or lesser perfectioii 
of their saintlinesa. In the older text this doctrine moved, 
■ comparatively speaking, in the background. Men wore tlien 

* It ia not impossible that these imaginations, which are here attained 
in the normal patJi of progressire abstraction, appeared also iu a patln- 
logical form, when it Is saitl ; " Ho raises himself to the stage of infiml; 
of space, which is meant to eonvey: 'Endless ia space' — he nttn 
himself to the stage of nothing- whatever-nesa, which means : * Then ii 
nothing whatever.' " The pantheistic myatieism derived from Drahmauidl 
speculation may here possibly join contact with the morbid conditioni «f 
spiritual, void familiar to psychiatry. It sounds, in fact, like a trausUlioi 
from a Buddhiat Sutrn, where Schiilo ("Groisterkranlheiten," p, ICO) 
describes the " universal feeling of the nothing free from every offcrt." 
"Nothing exists, and there is and will be nothing" — these bciag ll* 
words of a patient afflicted with this feeling. For Brahmanical dortriw 
parallel to the Snddhist doctrino of Abstractions, compare speeitllf 
■*' Yogasutra," i, 42, Keq. 

t " Dhammapada," 372. 



SELF- CON CENTRATJON. 311) 

pntent with deGning only a double event iu tbe souls of tlose 
flio hear and accept Baddlia's teaching. At first the know- 
sdge of the impennanence of all being dawna upon them, 

then barsta upon them," as the standard expression of the 
Bxts runs, " the clear and spotless vision of the truth : every- 

ing whatever that is liable to origination, is also liablo to 
teceaae." They discern painfal impermanence necessarily 
nherent in the existence of all being. He who has attained 
s knowledge and perseveres as a monk in earnest endeavour, 
ty hope to take even the last step and reach the stage where, 
'by tho cessation of the hankering (after the earthly), his sonl 
^omes free from sins :" the ultimate aim of spiritual aspira- 
ion, deliverance, and sanctity.* 

We refrain from nnfolding ia this place the system of the 
imr graded classes of believersj of later date, as it appears to 

9, and over weighted, as it is, with ever more increasingly 

imbrous scholastic accessories. t To the belonging to one 

• The narrative of Buddha's flrat diacooTses and eouveraiona (" MaM- 
»gga," Book I) gives ample vouchers for both grades of this auccessioa 
f steps. 

+ We reserve tor the third excuraiis at the close of this work, a more 
etailed exaioiimtioii of the texts, which fi;\vo the psychological attributes 
if the four stages. Here we content ourselves with stating tho brief 
Bharacteristies of those stages, which are uot unfrequently met in the 
writings lfi.ff.,vide " MaliLtparinibb4na Sutta,"p. 16, seq.). The lowest 
9 made up of the SotSpanna, i.e. those who have attained the path 
^oCsanctification). Of them it is said; "By tlie annihilation of the three 
!ties, they have attained the path ; they are not liable to re-hirth in the 
lower worlds (hells, spirit worlds, and world of lower animals) ; they are 
lure (of dehverance) ; Ihoy shall attain the highest knowledge." The 
text higher class ia that of the Sakadagami (" those who return once "} : 

By tho ftuaihilation of the three lies, by the suppression of desire, 
luitred and frivolity, they have become ' once-returniug ; ' when they 
•**ve returned once only to this world, they shall attain the end of 
•ofrow." Then follow the Anilgami ("the not-returning"): "By the 






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< , «•%'... 4— ■ . C ^ ^. ..^.^ ^■*. ....... • C - - ^ — .^^JL 3 «. «.* .•A^.^^ » .■ V— tr •-* *-•- •* 

■.\>.'j'- . : i .v-'i.'. '7'..', I.il k-lci A -iir.: oiill r.:: receive xncras::.* cr-' 
^" .Vr;;;.'..--;v:;^.," .'. C-' . fi:::!!, :: :- T:=-:cIe,:Lar ilie word "sain:" isb 
i,.>.':'J, a-j a r'.'.'.:.5i.'-t '-.f a vorj ar, :•:•:■-: nc-ie of speech, in a non-teclai 
•-..j^. '.flea ♦..'/:., s.'.'i tr^at :Le ;L;::r.ct::s in its orisrinal sense prcbibi 
•//■.nt:ni',\y t}.o admission of a murderer of a monk to tlic Order. 

t JUrictly taken the word Arhat ("saint "j signifies this, i.r., '*cne' 
ji»;i a claif/j "'—It its to be supplied : on pious charity and veneration. 



THE BUDDHAS. 

Hia last tlioaghts, his last longings, to the cessation of 

Earthly being, becomes participator in this prize. " I tell thee, 

k-O ITahfinama, that between a lay disciple, whose soul has 

kched this stage of deliverance, and a monk, whose soul is 

[ from all impurity, there exists no difference, as far as 

DTicems the state of their deliverance."* 

Eigh above these four stages stand those perfect ones, " who 

pave of themselves alone become partakers of the Buddha- 

Rood" (Paccebaboddha) : they have won the knowledge that 

P*ings dehverance, not as disciples of one of the holy, nniversal 

*tiddhas, but of their own power, yet their perfection does not 

;iid so far that they could preach it to the world. The 

fed texts seldom touch this notion of the Paccebab.uddhaR : 

pt can only have played an entirely secondary part in the 

[ ancient Order's circle of conceptions. It appears that the 

I Taceekabnddhas were thought to have hved chiefly in tho 

earher ages, when there were no nniversal Baddhas and no 

Orders founded by them ; the notion of a Paccekabuddha seems 

to have been principally intended to imply that even in such 

periods the door of deliverance is not shut against earnest and 

powerful effort. Bat the doctrine later advanced, that the 

• " Somjnttota Nikaya," vol. iii, fol. lau. — The later doctrine, not yet 

advanced, as far aa I know, in the sacred texts, construes this to mean, 

that even a layman can attain holiness, but that he is not able to sustain 

the weight thereof, just as a blade of grass is miablo to support the 

weight of a hearj stone. He must, therefore, on the same daj on which 

he attains holiness, either receive monastic orders, or, as the external 

I requisites for this cannot always be complied with, he muat enter into 

I Nirvilna ("Milinda Pafibn," p. 265).^ In the same eonooetion that 

I wantonly formal conception, also, as far as I know, foreign as yet to the 

I'Sarred teits, grows up, that the more highly endowed behcTers generally 

I uttain deliverunee " in the barber's shop," i.e., during tho performance of 

I tounre, which marks the passage from the worldly to the religious life. 

21 



322 TUE LAST STAGES OF TEE PATH OF SALVATION, BTC 

appearance of Paccekabuddhas is confined exclusively to those 
ages, is not, as far as it appears, in accordance with the dog- 
matic of the sacred Pali texts. ^^ In the whole universe,^^ says 
Buddha,* ^^ there is, except me only, no one who is equal to 
the Paccekabuddhas^^ — the existence of saints of this grade 
is consequently, to all appearance, admitted even in Buddha's 
own time. 

Above the four grades of believers and saints, there stand 
last of all, embodying in themselves the essence of every 
supreme perfection, the ^^ exalted, holy, universal Buddhas/' 

It may cause surprise, that it is only in this place that onr 
sketch mentions the dogma of the Buddhas, somewhat as an 
appendix to other more essential groups of thought. Is the 
doctrine of Buddha's personality a secondary matter, must 
it not be a fundamental part of the Buddhist faith, quite as 
much as in our regard the doctrine of the personality of Christ 
is a fundamental, nay, the fundamental part of the Christian 
creed ? 

At hardly any other point does the general similariiy of 
these two lines of evolution appear to diverge more detenni- 
nately than at this point. It may sound paradoxical, but it is 
undoubtedly correct to say, that the Buddhist doctrine might 
be in all essentials what it actually is, and yet admit of the 
idea of the Buddha being conceived apart from it. That the 
ineffaceable memory of Buddha's earthly life, that the belief 
iu Buddha's word as the word of truth, subjection to Buddha's 
law as the law of holiness — ^that all these considerations were 

* " Apadana/' f ol. ki of the Phajrre MS. Also when it is said, tiit 
two holy universal Buddhas can never appear in the same world-systea 
at the same time (** Anguttara Nik.," vol. i, fol. kam), it seems thereby to 
he implied, that the contemporaneous appearing of a universal Baddltf 
with Paccekabuddhas is not excluded. 



THE BUDDHAS. 32S 

of the utmost importance in the formation o£ religious life and 
experience in the Order of Bnddha's^disciples, scarcely needa 
to be said, Bnt as far as the dogmatic treatment of that one 
freat problem is concerned, with which alone the whole of 
£addhist dogmatic deala, the question of pain and dehverance, 
Ihe dogma of Bnddha stands in the background. In the creed- 
formula of the four sacred truths the word^Buddha does not 
occur. 

The key to the explanation of this remarkable attitude of 
the idea of Buddha towards the central ideas of the Buddhist 
lii-cle of thought, ia to be found, I beUeve, in pre-Baddhist 
history. 

Where a doctrinal system, bke the Christian, grows up on 
4he basis of a strong faith in a God, it is natural that in the 
fonscionsnesa of the commuuity a reflection, aye, more than 
a reflection of the grandeur and fulness of the almighty and 
all-good God should fall on the person of him who, as master, 
teacher, example, is in every way of immeasurable significance 
to the life of bis followers. The grace of God is said to 
bestow eternal bfe on man : the Master becomes the mediator 
by whom the grace of God extends to man. His nature is raised 
in supernatural dignity to unity with God's nature ; his earthly 
doings and sufferings appeal- to be the world -deli veriog doings 
£ud sufferings of God. 

The preconditions did not exist, under which an analagoua 
CTolution of notions regarding Buddha's person might have 
taken place. The faith in the ancient deities had been 
obliterated by the pantheism of the Atman theory ; and the 
Atman, the eternal inactive universal One, was not a' god, who 
could evince pity for man by a display of delivering activity. 
-Ajid even the belief in the Atman itself had been effaced or 
'oat, aud aa ruler over the world longing for deliverance there 



824 TEE LAST 8TAQE8 OF TEE FATE OF SALVATION, ETC. 

remained no more a god, but only the natural law of the 
necessary concatenation of causes and effects. There stood 
man alone as the sole operative agent in the struggle against 
sorrow and death ; his task was, by a skilful knowledge of 
the law of nature, to aim at gaining a position against it, 
in which he was beyond the reach of its sorrow-bringing 
operations. 

The data, which must determine the dogmatic treatment of 
Buddha's person, were hereby given. He could not be a god- 
sent deliverer, for man looked not for deliverance from a god. 
Knowledge is to deliver ; my knowledge is to deliver me : so 
he must be the great knower and bringer of knowledge for all 
the world. He must be a being, who has no inherent super- 
natural nobility beyond other beings,* but by higher, more 
powerful effort first discovers that path, in which others after 
him, following his footsteps, walk. In a certain sense we may 
say, that every disciple, who is pressing on to holiness, is also 
a Buddha as well as his Master.f This idea of essential 

* The fact that Euddha, before he is bom to his last life on earth, 
lires as a god in the Tusita heavens and thence descends to earth, in no 
way implies that a superhuman, god-and-man nature is claimed for him. 
One who is a god in one existence, may in the next existence be bom 
again as an animal or in a hell. As Euddha in his last life but one was 
a Tusita god, he had been in earlier existences also a Hon, a peacock, 
a hare, and so on ; hut in his last appearance on earth he was a man and 
in every way only a man. 

t The customary terminology does not indeed designate Buddha'^ 
saintly followers themselres as Euddhas, hut still it is evident on several 
occasions, that such an expression was felt to be really allowable. Thus, 
when the Sotapanna (note 2, p. 319) is defined as a person, who " will 
attain the highest knowledge (samhodhi)/' Especially in x>oetical texts 
it is often doubtful, whether the word huddha is used in its narrower 
sense or with reference to every saint. Tide " Dhammapada," v. 398 (cf. 
V. 419). 



THE BUDDHA8. 325 

resemblance between Buddha and all delivered men is very 
significantly set forth in the following words : ^^ As when, 
O Brahman, a hen has laid eggs, eight or ten or twelve, and 
the hen has sat on them long enough, and kept them warm 
and hatched them : when then one of the chickens first breaks 
the egg-shell with the tip of its claw or with its beak, and 
creeps successfully out of the egg, how will men describe this 
chicken, as the oldest or the youngest ?^^ ^^It will be called 
the oldest, venerable Gotama, for it is the oldest of them/' 
'^ So also, Brahman, of those beings, who live in ignorance 
and are shut up and confined as it were in an egg, I have first 
broken the egg-shell of ignorance and alone in the universe 
obtained the most exalted, universal Buddhahood. Thus am 
I, O Brahman, the eldest, the noblest, of beings/^* Buddha 
does not deliver beings, but he teaches them to deliver 
themselves, as he has delivered himself. They accept his 
declaration of the truth, not because it comes from him, 
bat because, verified by his words, personal knowledge of 
tbat whereof he speaks, dawns on their minds.f 

This is not, however, to be understood, as if Buddha's form 
had not in the belief of the Order exceeded the limits of earthly- 
fa uman reality, as if dogmatic had disdained to cast round 
Buddha's head the halo of a glory that illuminates the universe. 
The land of India was not like the Athens of Thukydides and 
Aristophanes, in which care was taken that Sammasambuddhas 

* " Suttavibhanga, Parajika," i, 1, 4. 

t It is said in one of Buddha's addresses, after a prefatory exposition 
of the causaHty formula : " If ye now know thus, and see thus, O disciples 
will ye then say : We respect the Master, and out of reverence for the 
Master do we thus speak?" — *'That we shall not, O sire.** — . . 
** What ye speak, O disciples, is it not even that which ye have yourselves 
known, yourselves seen, yoursqlves reaHzed P '* — " It is, sire"— Mahdtan^ 
hdsaJchamya Sutta, Majjhima Nikdya, 



326 THE LAST 8TAQE8 OF THE PATH OF SALVATION, ETC. 

^nd god-men should not appear on earth. The eye of the 
Indian was accustomed at every step to regard the natural 
course of events within their earthly limits as interwoven in 
fanciful continuity with infinite distance. The longer thought 
occupied itself vrith any speculation, the oftener it recurred to 
it, the more the human, the earthly in it vanished behind 
the dreamy, the typical, the universal. The age in which 
the doctrines of • the sorrow of everything earthly and of 
deliverance first engaged young thought, could look upon 
a Yajnavalkya and a ^^ndilya as merely wise and pure men ; 
viewed as the Buddhist viewed them, the floating outlines 
of such forms were bound to fix themselves after the type 
of the exalted, holy universal Buddhas appearing at fixed 
times according to an eternal law of the universe. 

It could scarcely be otherwise than that the historical form 
of the one actual Buddha multiplied itself under dogmatic 
treatment to a countless number of past and coming Buddhas. 
It might satisfy a faith, which measured the past of this world 
by thousands of years, its future by years, or perhaps by days, 
to see standing out above the span of time the form of one 
Saviour, to whom the past prophetically pointed, whose second 
coming puts an end to the brief future. For the Indian no 
horizon bounds the view of world-life; from immeasurable 
distance to immeasurable distance, through innumerable, 
immense ages of the world, extends the gigantic course of 
origination, decease, and re-origination. How could he regard 
what appeared to stand in the centre of his own world, of his 
own time, as the universal middle point of all worlds,* of all 
times ? 

* The allotment of time to the Buddhas in the different ages of the 
world is not an equal one. In one of the Pali-Si^tras (MahS.pad&nasutta) 
the statement is found, that the last Buddhas appeared at the following 



THE BUDDHA8, 327 

As an effort to reacli the light that gives deliverance extends 
throughout the whole coming and going of ages, throughout 
the whole of being, enveloped in dark sorrow, so must at 
certain times certain beings, obtain a glimpse of this light ; 
they must become Buddhas and fulfil the career ordained 
firom everlasting, of a Buddha. They are all bom in the 
Eastern half of central Hindostan ;* they all come of Brahman 
or Kshatriya families; they all attain delivering knowledge, 
sitting at the foot of a tree. Their lives are of different 
duration according to the ages in which they appear, and the 
doctrine also which they teach^ maintains its hold, sometimes 
for a longer, sometimes for a shorter period, but in each case 
for a definite length of time. ^^ Five hundred years, Ananda, 
wiU the doctrine of the truth abide,^' says Biiddh^ to his 
beloved disciple.f Then the faith vanishes from the earth, 
until a new Buddha appears, and again ^^sets in motion the 
Wheel of the Law.'' 

It follows that as the line of Buddhas extends throughout 

times : one in the ninety-first age of the world, back from the present^ 
two in the thirty-first age ; our present age is a " blessed age " (bhad- 
dakappa) ; it possesses five Buddhas, of whom Gotama is the fourth ; 
the appearing of Metteyya is still looked for. It is hardly necessary to 
observe, that all these Buddhas, Gotama Buddha alone excepted, are 
purely imaginary forms. (In the corresponding teaching of the Jaina- 
sect regarding the Jinas of ancient times, Jacobi, " Indian Antiquary," 
1880, p. 158, seq., believes he can find elements of actual fact. I cannot 
convince myself of it.) 

* So already the canonical Pali tradition, " CuUavagga," xii, 2, 3. The 
passage is instructive, inasmuch as it shows how ancient Buddhism, 
far from that cosmopolitan breadth of view, which people are wont to 
conceive as inherent in the Buddhist nature, regards its own narrow 
fatherland as the only chosen land. 

t " CuUavagga," x, 1, 6. Later on, when this prophecy was contra- 
dicted by events, the numbers were naturally made greater. Cf. 
« Koppen," i, 327. 



328 THE LAST 8TAQES OF TEE PATH OF SALVATION, ETC. 

the immeasurable extent of time^ so also the not less 
immeasurable expanses o£ space have their Buddhas. The 
sacred texts appear to touch very slightly this idea of Buddha 
appearing in distant systems of worlds, but the conception 
is quite in keeping with Indian fancy, that even in those 
worlds separated from us. by infinities the same struggle 
of beings for deliverance repeats itself, which is going on on 
this earth. ^^It cannot happen, disciples/^ says Buddha, 
'^ it is impossible for two holy, universal Buddhas to appear in 
one world-system at one time, not one before or after the 
other '^* — ^in these words we may perhaps see a hint given, 
that in other systems, apart from what is occurring in our 
world, similar triumphs of light over darkness are won, to that 
which Buddha has secured under the tree at Uruvel^. 

We hope to be excused from expanding in detail the 
scholastic predicates, which dogmatic attributes to the exalted, 
holy, universal Buddhas, from speaking of the ten Buddha 
faculties, of the thirty-two external marks of a Buddha, and so 
on. Instead of this we shall try to exhibit the tout ensemhle^ 
which the union of all these perfections produced in the 
imagination of the believer, the picture of supreme power, 
supreme knowledge, supreme peace, supreme compassion. 

We shall speak in the words of the texts. 

Buddha says : ^^ The all-subduing, the all-knowing, am I, 
in everything that I am, without a spot. I have given up 
everything; I am without desire, a delivered one. By my 
own power I possess knowledge; whom should I call my 
master ? I have no teacher : no one is to be compared to me. 
In the world, including the heavens, there is no one like unto 
me. I am the Holy One in the world ; I am the supreme 



* « 



Angattara Nikaya," vide supra, note, p. 322. 



THS BUDDHAS. t 

Master. I alons am the perfect Baddlin; the flames are 
extinct in me ; I have attained the Nirvana."* " The Exalted 
One," Kacc3,na names iiim,t "the bringer of joy, the dispenser 
of joy, whose organs of life are placid, whose spirit is at rest, 
the anpremo self-aubduer and peace-possessor, the hero, who 
lias conqnered self and watches himself, who holds his desires 
in check." " He appears in the world for salvation to many 
people, for joy to many people, out of compassion for the 
world, for the blessing, the salvation, the joy of gods and 
inen."f Thus have the Buddhaa of bygone ages appeared, 
thns shall the Buddhaa of coining ages appear. 

"Will theii- succession ever have an end ? Will the victory 
become complete, so that all beings shall have crossed over to 
deliverance ? 

The faithfal of ancient days directed their thoughts but 
seldom to this last question as to the future. Bet they did 
not wholly pass it over. In the narrative of Buddha's death 
we read the exclamation to which the god Brahma gave 
ntterance when the Holy One entered into the Nirvana : 
"In the worlds beings all put oil' corporeity at some time, 
Just as at this present time Buddha, the prince of victory, tie 

supreme master of all worlds. 
The miglitj. Perfect One, hath entered into Jfirvana." 

Thns beings shall all reach the Nirv&na. Then, when 
animated, sorrow-suscepfcible beings have vanished from the 
domain of being, will the procession of the Sankhtlras, the 
origination and decadence of worlds, continue in eternity? 
Or, after the extinction of all conscionsness in which this 
proceseion was reflected, will the world of the Sankharaa fall 



* " Mahavagga," i, 6, 8. 

■f Tide anpra, p. 146. 

J " Anguttara Nikiya," vol. i 



fol. ko. and elaewhere. 



330 THE LAST 8TAQE8 OF TRE PATH OF SALVATION, ETC. 

to pieces, sinking in its own ruins ? Will the Nirvana, in the 
depths of which the realms o£ the visible have disappeared, be 
the One and All ? 

We ask too much. '^ The Exalted One has not revealed this. 
As it does not conduce to salvation, as it does not conduce to 
holy life, to separation from the earthly, to the extinction of 
desire, to cessation, to peace, to knowledge, to illumination, to 
Nirvana, therefore has the Exalted One not revealed it/' 



3- 



PART III. 



THE OEDER OF BUDDHA'S DISCIPLES. 



CHAPTER L 



The Constitution of the Order and its Codes of Laws. 

We now turn from the examination of the faith which held 
together the band of Buddha^s followers, to the consideration 
of the outward observances, which religious custom and reli- 
gious discipline have prescribed for the life of this monastic 
fraternity. It appears from the very beginning to have been 
a society governed by law. The completion of a procedure 
prescribed by law was necessary to the reception of a postulant 
into the society. The law of the Order pointed out to him his 
course of action and of omission. The society itself as a court 
of discipline secured conformity to the ecclesiastical rules by 
keeping up a regular judicial procedure. 

This early appearance of a form of associated life strictly 
governed by law can cause no astonishment. It is the 
counterpart of the equally early appearance of a matured 
and formulated dogmatic ; the same characteristic features of 
the period in which Buddhism developed itself, the same forces 
of preceding history upon which it rests, explain the one 
phenomenon as well as the other. The monastic orders 



i532 THE LAWS OF THE ORDER AND BOOKS OF THE LAWS. 

professing other faiths, preceding and coeval with Buddha's 
Order, and, in a not less degree, the common source of all 
these sects, Brahmanism, have furnished for the formation of a 
Church polity, as they did in the case of dogmatic speculation, 
a set of ready-made forms, which Buddhism had only to 
appropriate. 

Quickly as the formation of canonical observances seems to 
have attained a complete state, still there is no need of proving 
that it cannot have been the work of a moment. In the texts, 
which contain the rules for the life of the members of the 
Order, traces are clearly enough discernible which enable us to 
distinguish earlier and later phases of development. We can. 
trace how a complex of injunctions first grew up, which were 
regularly propounded about the time of full moon and new 
moon in the confessional meetings of the Order; constantly 
recurring technical expressions described in all these rules 
what degree of guilt the monk incurred who transgressed 
them. It is quite possible that this old collection of prohibi- 
tions, which has come down to us under the title of P&timokkha 
(" unburdening ''), the basis of the whole body of Buddhist 
Church-law, goes back to Buddha's own time, to the confessional 
meetings held by him with his disciples.* A later layer of the 
sacred texts shows us how further on the necessity made itself 
felt in the next period, of supplementing by new regulations 

* "Not, indeed, in the Patimokkha itself, but in another portion of the 
Church ordinances, bearing likewise the stamp of high antiquity, there 
is a clue which appears to point directly to the origin of the rules in 
question within Buddha's own lifetime. In the description of the persons 
who are not permitted to receive ordination, " he who has shed blood " 
appears. It cannot be meant that every one is rejected who has inflicted 
on another a bloody wound, for not even all murderers are excluded, but 
only parricides, matricides, and murderers of a holy man. Therefore it 
can hardly be doubted that the traditional explanation is correct, which 



EABLT FRAMJSO OF BINDING RVLES. 



S3S 



the principles laid down in the P^timobkha. Bat no one 
ventured to add anything on hia own authority to the old 
hallowed formulaa. They therefore left the PAtimokkha itself 
nntouched, bnt undertook, in the form of commentai-ies and in 
new works, a revised and enlarged edition of the canonical 
rules. They did not hesitate, indeed, to prescribe punishments 
for transgressions which were not specified as such in the 
^kkha. Yet they did not presame in doing so to use the 
ispressions which had been adopted in the PAtimokkha, 
Siey employed new words and introduced new forms of" 
disciplinary procedure for bringing to ponishtnent any offences 
against the newly-constituted ordinances.* Thus the succession 
of earher and later periods reveals itself to oar research more 
certainly still and more clearly in the development of the 
system of connexional law than in that of dogmatic. 

But, we must add, although the Order of Buddha's disciples, 
or members thereof specially called on and qualified to do so, 
have virtually acted as law-makers, yet in theory the commuoitj 
has distinctly disclaimed all legislative functions. The authority 
to frame a law for the community belongs to Buddha alono 
according to Buddhist theory. All commands and prohibitions 
received their character as binding rules from the fact that 
Buddha has enunciated, or is supposed to have enunciated 
them. With his death both the possibility and the necessity 
for creating new laws has become extinct. The Order has only 
to apply and expound Buddha's regulations, in the same way 

here underatands : "who has ao wounded Buddha that his blood has 
flowed." Tliat this di^finition originated in a time when it had a meaning 
will he regarded, if not as ahaolutely certain, at any rate aa more than 
natanJ. For the elncidntion of the passage in point (" MaLavagga," i, 
67), cf. "CuUav."vii,3, 9. 

• Cr. the Introduction to my edition of the " Vinaya Pitaka," vol. i, 
p. xrii, aeq. 



4J34 THE LAWS OF THE ORDER AND BOOKS OF THE LAWS. 

that it has to carefully preserve the doctrine revealed by 
Buddha, but it is not called upon nor is it competent to 
improve or extend. " The Order does not lay down what has 
not been laid down (by Buddha), and it does not abolish what 
he has laid down; it accepts the ordinances as he has prescribed 
them, and abides by them '^ — so traditional legend represents 
a Church council to have resolved shortly after Buddha^s 
death.* In the sacred texts, accordingly, all regulations, even 
those obviously belonging to later periods, appear as if they 
had been issued by Buddha himself. The inconsistency with 
which, from this very desire to be consistent, they came to act, 
is characteristic : they had no scruple in giving out as orders 
of the exalted, holy Buddha, those very rules made by them- 
selves which they shrank from clothing in the time-hallowed 
form of the P&timokkha institutes. The liturgical conscience 
was stronger than the historical — if, indeed, that complete 
indifference with which men in India have at all times regarded 
or rather have not regarded, literary and historical authenticity 
will allow us in this case to speak of an historical conscience. 

The ancient compilations of the laws of the Order share to 
the fullest extent in all those peculiarities which cause some 
sections of Buddhist dogmatics to appear to us to be a so very 
pathless waste. The same subtlety here as there, the same 
inexhaustible capability of enjoying long abstract series of 
notions purely for their own sake. Here we have, not rules 
drawn from life for life, but scholastic lucubrations, unpractical 
and, strictly speaking, not even clear. The form in which they 

* " Cullavagga/* xi, 1, 9, cf. " Suttavibhanga, Nissaggiya," xv, 1, 2. 
The narrative of the council at Vesali (" CuUavagga," xii), also clearly 
illustrates how the Churcli, according to the current theory, limited itself 
throughout to the authentic interpretation of the spiritual law ordained 
by Buddha. 



LAW-MAKma ]2T THE BUHDBIST COMWmiTT. 



335 



are QsmJly introduced is moat aimple. In every case the eame 
outline: At this time, when the exalted Buddha was staying in 
suet and such a place, this and that irregularity occurred. 
The people who came to know of this were irritated, murmured, 
and complained : How can monks, who foUow the son oi the 
Sakya house, commit such offences, like wanton worldlings — or : 
like nnheheving heretics, as the case in point has occarred. 
The spiritual brothers hear the -whisperinga of the people ; 
they too are irritated, murmur and complain : How can the 
venerable N. N. be guilty of the like 1 They mention the 
matter to Buddha; he calls tho disciples together, delivers 
to them an admonitory address, and then issues the order : 
I order, O disciples, that so and so shall or shall not be done. 
WhoBO does this is liable to such and such a punishment. 
Stereotyped like this narrative itself, which recurs thousands 
of times, are also the figures of the culprits who appear in the 
narrative, and by their actions afford occasion in every instance 
for Buddha's interference. A specific brother tarns out to be 
the culprit, if the matter be an inordinate exaction of pious 
beneficence. If offences of a lascivious description occur, the 
actop, as a rule, is the venerable Ud^yi. But the longest 
catalogue of crimes attaches to the Chabhaggiyas, six monks 
associated together in all mischievous artifices. "Wiatevor 
Buddha may prescribe, the Chabbaggiyas always find a way 
of circumventing the law, or, while they comply with it, of 
mixing up some evil with their performance. When Buddha 
declares that the twigs of certain plants are to be used for 
cleaning the teeth, the Chabbaggiyas take long and massive 
twigs, and beat the novices with them. If a transgressor ia 
to be censured before the Order, the Chabbaggiyas raise 
objections and thereby defeat tho enforcement of discipline. 
On one occasion when the nans had dirty water poured over 



836 THE LAWS OF THE ORDER AND BOOKS OF THE LAWS. 

ihem^ the C3iabbaggiyas were the actors, and so on through the 
long texts of the Rules for the Order the Chabbaggiyas figure 
everywhere as the arch-criminals, whose new discoveries in all 
regions of mischief the spiritual legislation enacted by Buddha 
follows up step by step. There is in these narratives un- 
doubtedly many an authentic memory of the evil deeds of 
this and that black sheep of the flock. But, taken as a whole^ 
it needs scarcely to be said, a picture of what was wont to occur 
within the Order, based on these cases of spiritual discipline, 
would only be correct to the same extent as if, for example, 
one were to admit Stichus, the much renowned slave of the 
Digests, to pass for an illustration of Roman slaves in general. 
We shall now endeavour to present in a connected form the 
regulations of the Order, as they are illustrated in the descrip- 
tions of countless occurrences scattered here and there in the 
canonical texts. 



The Order and the Dioceses — ^Admission and Withdrawal. 

The band of disciples gathered round Buddha, out of which 
grew the Order and the Church, rested, as without doubt did 
also the other monastic orders of India so numerous in that 
age, on the forms, which under the older Brahmanical system 
governed the relation between the religious teacher and his 
religious disciples. The use of the same words, which, in this 
case as as well as in that, constituted the solemn expression of 
this relationship, warrant our inferring the homogeneousness 
of the last-named system. The youth who desires to commit 
himself to the guidance of a Brahmanical teacher to learn the 
Veda, steps before him and says : " I am come for the 
Brahmacarya (spiritual discipleship). I desire to be a Brahma- 



TBE ORDEB. 337 

(spiritual disciple)." And the teacher "ties the girdle 
round him, gives him the staff into his hand and explains him 
the Brahmacarya, by saying : ' Thoa art a Brahmacarin ; drink 
■water; perform service; sleep not by day; study the Veda 
obediently to thy teacher.' "* In the very same way, accord- 
ing to Buddhist tradition, the coming Buddha goes in the time 
^of his quest of dehvering knowledge to the spiritual teacher 
TIddaka and says ; " I desire, friend, according to thy 
teaching and thy direction, to walk in the Brahmacarya," 
Uddaka receives him, and the relation thus established is 
indicated with the very expressions, which are those regularly 
adopted in the Brahmanical mode of speech, as that subsisting 
between Aearya (teacher) and Antevasin (scholar) .f And in 
the same way Inter on, when Buddha himself as a teacher 
receives the first students o£ his gospel, tradition represents 
Lim as doing so in these words : " Come hither, monk, tho 
doctrine is duly preached ; walk in the Brahmaciirya, to put an 
end to all sorrow." 

The Order of Buddhists presents, as long as the Master is 
alive, a union of teacher and scholars after the Brahmanical 
model. The transition of such a community, so to speak, from 
a monarchical type to a republican, its passing somehow, when 
the teacher dies, into a confederacy of independent members 
existing side by side, is wholly unknown to the religious system 
of the Brahmans. J This very transition has completed itself in 

• " A^vaiayantt G.," i, 22 ; cf. " Pfljaakara," ii, 2, 3 ; " ?at. Br.," xi, 6, 
4,8eq. 

"t" Thus also when tho BuddbistB say : " FraTolalcaBEBpo malifLaamanQ 
{i.f. bhagarati) brahniBcartyBip carati," thb amomita to iko same as when 
it IB said in the " CUiadogya XTjianiBhad " : "MaghaviVn Praj&patau 
brahmacaryam uTasa ;" ivhon ludra resolves to enter into this relation of 
.pupfl, it is said of him " abhipraravraja." 

X Kot OTea ia that case in which wo should bo especially inclined to 

22 



338 THE ORDER AND THE DIOCESES. 

BuddHam. Buddha died, and hia diaciplsB, already at tliat 
time scattered over the greater part of India, enrvived as a 
monastic community, wliich had no visible head and saw its 
invisible head only in tho doctrine and ordinance declared hj 
Buddha.* " Be your own light, bo your own refuge," sajs 
Buddha, when approaching death, " have no other refnge. 
Let the truth be your light and your refuge ; have no other 
refuge." Thus became fixed, what has been described as (he 
trinity of Buddhism, the triad of those sacred powers, in 
which the newly- entering monk or lay-brother by solemn 
declaration "tatea his refuge:" Buddha, the Doctrine, tie 
Order. Not without hesitation I here venture to hazard a 
conjecture, which has no support and can have none in tradi- 
tion : I think that the formula of this sacred triad does not gi 
back to the time of Buddha's life, but that it had its origin in 
connection with those very changes which his death wronglt 
for the community of his disciples. Must not Buddha alone, 
as long as he lived, and the Doctrine of deliverance preached 
by him have appeared to the believers their refuge ? Coold 
anyone call the disciples his refuge, as long as the Master was 
with them ? His death changed everything. Now tho Order 
stood as the sole visible exponent of the idea hitherto embodied 
in Buddha, as the sole possessor of delivering truth ; now he 

expect to Snd sucb a transition, tliat, namclj, wliere tlic pupils of thf 
deceased teacliecs had been life-long (DaiahtSiita) Brahmacarins. C(. Ihf 
statements aa to the Bcholata, whose teacher dies, in " Gantama," iii, I- 
seq,, " Manu," ii, 247, aeq. ; BiiMer on " ipaatambii," i, 1, 1, 12. 

• Considorinft the great number and tlie spattered residences oE tin 
members of the Order, it is natural to think it is eren probable, llol 
already in Buddha's lifetime the fraternities of his disciples Lad u 
■ existence independent of Buddha's personality in essential featni**- 
Buddhist tradition also points to this. More intimate knowledge of Uie 
facts bearing on this matter is obviously not obtainable by 



THE THREE SAORED ENTITIES : BVDDHA, DOCTRINE, ORDER, 339 

who desired to become a partaker of this truth, was obliged to 
take his refage also with the Order. 

The confession of this sacred triad has been couched in 
these articles^ to which has been added in the fourth place the 
expression of the determination to abide by the precepts of 
holy living. The formula runs : — 

'* To Buddha will I look in faith : he, the Exalted, is the 
holy, supreme Buddha, the Knowing, the instructed, the 
blessed, who knows the worlds, the Supreme One, who yoketh 
men like an ox, the Teacher of gods and men, the Exalted 
Baddha. 

"To the Doctrine will I look in faith : well-preached is the 
Doctrine by the Exalted One. It has become apparent; it 
needs no time ; it says ' come and see ; ^ it leads to welfare ; 
it is realized by the wise in their own hearts. 

'' To the Order will I look in faith : in right behaviour lives 
the Order of disciples of the Exalted One; in proper behaviour 
lives the Order of the disciples of the Exalted One; in honest 
behaviour lives the Order of the disciples of the Exalted One ; 
in just behaviour Hves the Order of the disciples of the Exalted 
One, the four couples, the eight classes of believers ;* that is 
the Order of the disciples of the Exalted One, worthy of 
offerings, worthy of gifts, worthy of alms, worthy to have men 
lift their hands before them in reverence, the highest place in 
the world, in which man may do good. 

*' In the precepts of rectitude will I walk, which the holy 
love, which are uninfringed, un violated, unmixed, uncoloured, 
free, praised by the wise and not counterfeit, which lead on to 
concentration.'^t 

* The different grades of the holy. 

t So according to the " Samyuttaka Nik&ya," vol. iii, fol. sk; of. 

22* 



S40 TEE ORDER AND THE DI00E8E8. 

Bat if the Order be regarded as the ideal unit of believing 
monks over the whole face of the earthy as the bearer of a 
holiness which resembles the holiness of Baddha and his Doc- 
trine^ yet in actual life the Order never appears in this universal 
sense. There is really not one order, but only orders, commu- 
nities of the monks sojourning in the same diocese. Devout 
persons might indeed present gifts and endowments to the 
^' Church of the four quarters of the world, those present and 
those absent ;" then the monks happening to be present, or 
the monks present of the diocese concerned, appear to have 
been regarded as the legitimate representatives of the '' Church 
of the four quarters" for the receiving of such a gift and the 
administration of property so acquired : but regular standing 
organization for the superintendence of its concerns the 
collective Church had none ; for the forming of any resolution, 
the completion of any act in its name, there was a total absence 
of legal form. 

The difficulties, which were bound to arise from this, 
and which have as a fact arisen, are obvious. The band of 
disciples, which had gathered round Buddha, had grown with 
unparalleled rapidity into a great spiritual power. Throughout 
all India and soon beyond the confines of India, in the woods, 
through the villages, went the Buddhist monks preaching and 
begging. How then was the " Church of the four quarters, 
those present and those absent" to undertake in fact the 
administration of their common concerns ? This object could 
only have been secured by creating a powerful centre, a 
spiritual regency in which the will of the whole Church would 



" Mahaparin, S.," p. 17, seq. ; " D'Alwis, Kachchayana," p. 77. He who 
keeps the vows expressed in this confession, has reached the grade of the 
*' Sot&panna " {vide p. 319, note 2) on the path of hdiness. 



WANT OF A CENTRAL POWER. 341 

have concentrated itself.* But vre find that not even the 
slightest attempt has been made in the whole Church-regula- 
tiona for carrying out anch arrangements. f The centre of 
gravity of all operations of Church-governmentj if we may 
speak of such a thing at all, lies within the circumference^ 
within the small corps of brethren dwelling in the same 
circuit. But in the wandering life of these mendicant monks, 
jn their constant coming and going, which only the three 
months of the rainy season bring to a certain standstill, the 
composition of these limited corps is naturally always changing. 
These monks to-day, to-morrow those have been thrown 
together, to-day these, to-morrow those exercise decisive 

* We have akcadj icferrod (p. 158, note 2) to the fact that after 
Buddha's death none o£ the disciples was regarded as called to what may 
be styled the succoasion. We hero Insert further the following pasaago ; 
" At one time tlie venerable Auonda was sojoumiug at Bajagalia . . , 
shortly after the Esolted One had entered into iNirvilua. At that time 
the king of Ma^adha, Ajitasattu, the son of tlie VedeLl princesB, was 
fortifying EAjagaha against the King Pujjota." TIio minister, Tho ia 
directing these fortifications, Vassakara, aaks Anaoda: "Venerable 
Ananda, has any speeial monk been marked out by the venerated Gotama 
of whom he has said : 'This shall be your relugo after my death'— in 
whom you can now find your shelter P" Ananda answers the queation in 
the negative. The minister i'urLhor asks ; " Kaa then the Church named 
a specific monk, has a multitude of ciders appointed him and given an 
order : ' He shall after the death of the Exalted One be our refuge ' — P" 
This also Ananda answers in the negative. " If you thus hare no refuge, 
revered Ananda, how does unity eiist among you?" "There is no 
want to U3 of a lefuge, O Brahman ; we have a refuge, the Doctrine.' . 
(" Gopakamoggallana Suttanla" in the "Majjhima iNikayS." Cf. also 
eupra, p. 1S8.) 

t How far the official construction of Church history current in Ceylon 
has understood Ihc post of the "VinayapSmokkha (" Heads of the Church 
Law ") as that of a primate, I do no pretend to determine. But this very 
notion of the Vlnayapamokkha, wholly foreign to the ancient Church law, 
shoTta that here we meet a not happy fiotitioua congtmction of history. 



342 THE ORDER AND THE DI0CE8E8. 

authority among the brothers. Continuity and succession in 
the direction of matters of common interest could not, under 
these circumstances, possibly exist — and how could there h& 
wanting in the life of this vast ecclesiastical corporation matters, 
which demanded a continuous direction ? If the synod of a 
particular district had come to any resolution for the decision 
of a doubtful point, or as to the right and wrong in a dispute 
between spiritual brothers, it was open to every other synod 
to resolve the contrary, and higher authority there was none,^ 
either to re-establish harmony in a synod divided within itself, 
or to reconcile the rival claims of difierent synods.* In the 
early times after Buddha's death the personal authority of the- 
disciples, who had stood nearest to the Master, may possibly 
have operated to compensate this want and have checked the 
outbreak of serious discord : but a condition of things, which 
depends on the weight of individuals, not upon the sure struc-- 
ture of legal institutions, bears in itself the germ of dissolution. 
The sacred texts, which became fixed some time towards the 
end of the first century after Buddha^s death, show clearly 
what disorder and confusion must have prevailed in the Church 
at that time ; there is reflected in these texts the deep feeling 
of disaster, which dissensions among the brethren were bound 
to cause and were already causing, and at the same time the 
utter incapacity to prevent this disaster. The chapter on 
Schisnas in the Church is constantly treated of, whenever the 
topic of spiritual life is discussed ; the guilt of him who has 
given occasion for such dissensions is reckoned among the 
gravest sins ; the most impressive admonitions to the brethren 
are put in Buddha^s mouth, to live in harmony with each other 

* Of the disorder, which hence arising prevailed in the Church law 
and subsequently undoubtedly also in the Church life, " Cullavagga," iv, 
14, 25, for example, gives us a glimpse. 



WANT OF A CENTRAL POWER AND THE OOUNCILS. 



3t3 



and to make concossions, even when in tho right, rather than 
to allow divisions to arise in the Order. More effective still 
than these admonitions would have been institutions, pos- 
sessing the power to watch over the relations between 
communities and members of communities, over the co-opera- 
tion of alt; auch institutions wore wholly wanting. 

The defect, which lay here, shows itself in nothing more 
observably than in those very features which a cursory 
examination might be inclined to regard as its remedy : in 
the great councils to which such transcending importance 
is attached iu old Buddhist tradition. The sacred tests 
mentions two such councils. The first is said to have been 
held at RSjagaha a few months after Buddha's death, for 
the porpoBO of compiling an anthontic collection of Buddha's 
discourses and precepts. The second tools place, as it is said, 
a hondred years later at Vesali, occasioned by a difference of 
opinion as to certain licenses, which had como to be practised 
by the monks of that town. This narrative of the council 
at Rdjagaha is, we admit, to all appearance rjuite unhistorical, 
but the legal construetioa, on which it rests, is not on that 
account anything tho leas instructive for us. In the great 
gathering of disciples, who camo together at Knsinfi,r3. after 
Buddha's death, thought turns upon collecting and arranging 
Bnddha's discourses, so as to possess in them a weapon against 
profane innovators. It is decided that five hundred chosen 
brethren of known holiness should perform this great task at 
B&jagaha, and tho assembled monks give thorn a commission 
in this behalf by a formal resolution. This resolution decides 
that the five hundred are to pass the rainy season at RSjagaha 
and that no other monk is permitted to remain then in that 
town. Thus the council is held ; the arrangement and the 
wording of the canonical texts is fixed by the five hundred 



844 THE ORDER AND THE'DIOCESES. 

fathers. Now then^ if we ask what is the legal nature of this 
assembly^ it is evident^ that it is nothing more and nothing 
less than the assembly of the brethren sojooming in the 
diocese of B&jagaha. There have come together^ because 
of the resolution passed at Kusin&r&^ specially numerous 
and specially qualified persons^ and, in pursuance of that 
resolution, unqualified persons have kept themselves aloof from 
that diocese,* but that in no way alters the case, that the 
deliberations of this so-called council are in fact only the 
proceedings of one specially prominent diocese, brought about 
by the resolution of another similar diocesan meeting, but 
not a Church-proceeding, resting on the authority of the 
'^ Church of the four quarters of the world/^ It seems that 
tradition itself was clearly sensible of this, and that it desired 
to give expression to this, when it represented the venerable 
Pur&na, a monk who had not been a sharer in the deliberations, 
coming to Rajagaha at their close, and being told : ^^ The 
fathers, my dear Purana, have fixed the canon of the Doctrine 
and Law ; accept this canon/' But he answers : ^'The canon 
of the Doctrine and Law, my friends, has been admirably 
fixed by the fethers, but I will adhere to that which I have 
myself heard and received from the Exalted One" The 
fathers make no reply, and cannot, indeed, say anything in 
reply; the right of the individual to take as much or as 
little notice as he pleased of the resolution of an assembly 
such as that at Sajagaha was, could not be disputed with 
propriety on the basis of this form of Church.t 

* A cogent necessity to do so can scarcely liave been bronglit about 
6y suck a decree ; the right of eveiy brother to live where he pleases, 
could hardly be set aside by a resolution like that here spoken c^ 

t It is the same as to the Conndl at YesalL To remedy the abuses 
whidi had arisen in VesaH. a number of elders come together in that 



ANARCHY m TEE ORDER-^ADMSBION TO 1TB BANKS. 345 

The force of existing circumstances and the authority of 
influential personages might perhaps for a time help to make 
up for, or conceal the utter want of organization ; finally, how- 
ever, the inherent impossibility of a Church without Church- 
government, with ordinances which were only applicable 
to the narrow circle of a coterie, was certain to lead to 
ever increasingly momentous consequences. Those deeply 
incisive schisms, which early arose and never disappeared, the 
weakening of the resistance opposed to the Brahmanism at 
first so successfully attacked, are phenomena certainly not 
unconnected with that fundamental defectiveness of Buddhist 
Church-organization. If at last, after a long death-struggle. 
Buddhism has vanished from its Indian home, leaving not a 
trace behind, wo venture to think, that in the old rules of the 
community, in what they say and not less in what they leave 
unsaid, no small part of the preparatory history leading to that 
distant future is clearly enough depicted. 

Entry into the Order* was, as a rule, open to everyone. As 
earthly sufieripg affects all, as all are bound as it were by bands 
to the paths of metempsychosis, so too must the liberation 
from these bands, which Buddha^s teaching promises, embrace 
all who choose to accept it. Buddha utters at the commence- 
ment of his career these words : — 

" Open thou, O Wise One, the door of eternity ; 
Let be^heard what thou, O Sinless One, hast discovered." 

Nevertheless it could not but be that practical necessity 

place ; the resolutions of the '' Council " are in reality only resolutions of 
the diocese of YesMi, to which every monk, who comes to Yesali, eo ipso, 
belonged, and the composition of which was modified appropriately to 
the importance of this special cause. 

* We confine our observations for the present to the Order of Monks. 
We shall speak of the nuns farther on. 



M6 THE CHURCH AND THE DI0CE8E8. 

slioald cause the imposition of ceiiaiii restrictions on admission 
into the Order. The reception of those afflicted with serions 
bodily deformities and sicknesses was^ as a matter of course, 
forbidden ; it was the same with confirmed criminals. Then 
there were above all several categories of persons excluded, 
whose entry into the spiritual status would have involved an 
interference with the rights of third parties: persons who 
were in the royal service, especially soldiers, could not be 
admitted, as that would have interfered with the rights of 
the king as commander of the forces ; debtors and slaves could 
not, for this would have been an infringement of the rights of 
their creditors and owners ; sons, whose parents had not given 
their consent were similarly excluded. Children, too, were 
considered unfit for admission into the Order : a person might 
be received as a novice at the earliest at the age of twelve 
years,* and as a fully-accredited member at tweniy.f 

The ceremony of initiation is completed in two grades : there 



* These twenty years are reckoned not firom birth but from conception, 
by a method of computation occurring also in the spiritual law of the 
Brahmans. {** Mahavagga," i, 75 ; cf. '' ghnkhkjtai& G.," ii, I, seq.) 

t The statements having reference to invalidity of reception (** Maha- 
vagga/' i, 49, seq. ; 61, seq.) prohibit, partly the completion of the lower, 
and partly that of the higher grade of initiation (tfide infra). In cases 
of the latter kind the initiation granted contrary to rule must be cancelled ; 
the old codex of the *' Patimokkha " goes even &rther, and, in the only case 
of the kind which it touches, declares the initiation granted to be ipso 
jure invalid (" PlUjitt.," 65). For cases of the first kind on the contrary 
there is no such clause; it appears, that in this case the initiation 
remained in force, even though it had been conceded contrary to rule. 
Thus we might here have a distinction which may be compared to that of 
impedimenta dirimentia and impedientia in the legal system of our own 
times. In detail the separation of cases falling under the two classes 
mentioned gives rise to manifold doubts ; the redaction of the *' Mahi- 
vagga " is in this point not without embarrassment. 



THE LOWER WITIATIOU. 



347 



is a lower, to a certain extent preparatory ordination, Pabbajjdj 
i.e., the ontgoingj and a higher Upasampada, i.e., the arrivaJ. 
Tte PabbajjA, is tho going out from a prior state, from tho 
lay-life or from a monastic sect holding another faith j the 
Upasampadft is tho entiy into tho circle of tho Bhikkhus, tho 
fttlly-accreditcd members of the Buddhist Order ; just as in 
Bnddha'g own life, tho departure from home is distinct from 
the Upasampadfl, the attainment of delivering knowledge, 
which coincides with the fonnding of the Order.* Between 
the two steps of initiation, if the postulant has not yet attained 
the age o£ twenty years, lies the noviciate, or if he has 
previously belonged to another monastic order, a probationary 
period extending over four months. t To outsiders, who look 
npon the Order as a whole, without considering the difference 
based on its internal relationship, he is during this term, as weE 
as all his brethren, an " ascetic who follows the son of the 
Sakya house ; "X but in the Order he is first treated as a 
Bbikkhn, a real member, when he has received the higher 
initiation. Where the grounds mentioned for separating tho 
two steps of initiation did not exist, they appear to have been 
gone through, as a rule, at the same time. 

We directed attention above (p. 336) to tho analogy which 
prevails between the reception of a Buddhist believer iuto 
the Order and the reception of the young Brahman by his 
teacher. This is the place to institute a comparison between 
tho first of the two steps in Buddhist initiation and another 
stage in the Bi-ahmanical system, the entry of the Brahman 



• " Milinda rafiha," p. 76 ; " Mah&vaBta," vol. i, p. 3. 

t So according ia " MahAvBgRa," i, 38, I give tliis vii 
to that stated in the " Mah&pnrinibbana Sutta," p. 59, ai 
the probationary period precedes the Pabbajjfl,. 

I Vide e.g., " MahfLvagga," i, 46. 



r the preference 
ordjng to which 



^8 TEE ORDER AND THE DIOCESES. 

into the state of a hermit op wandering beggar. '' When the 
Brahman/' we read in Manu's Institutes, ^^who is living in 
the state of a householder, sees his skin becoming wrinkled and 
his hair becx)ming grey, if he sees his son's son, then let him 
go forth into the forest. Let him leave all food, such as one 
enjoys in the village,, and all household furniture behind him ; 
to his sons let him commit his wife, and let him go to the 
forest, or let him go forth with his wife. Let the Brahman 
make the Praj&pati-oflfering and give all his possessions as 
remuneration of sacrifice ; his holy fire let him take up in his 
own body, and thus let him go forth from his house.* For the 
Brahman, who leaves his home and becomes a homeless ascetic, 
his own act of outgoing only is necessary ; and PabbajjS, i.e., 
^^ the outgoing'' is therefore used by the Buddhists of the first 
step of initiation, by which the change of a layman into an 
ascetic takes place, ^^ outgoing from home into homeless- 
ness " (agarasma anag&riyam pabbajj&). . 

Pabbajja, as is implied by its very essence, is a one-sided 
act on the part of the " outgoer." He alone speaks, and of 
what he says the Order as such takes no notice ; every older, 
fully-accredited monk can receive his declaration. The candi- 
date puts on the yellow garment of the religieuXy has his hair 
and beard shaved off, and says three times in reverential 
attitude to the monk or monks present : ^' I take my refuge in 
the Buddha. I take my refuge in the Doctrine. I take my 
refuge in the Order." 

To full membership of the Order, to be a Bhikkhu, the 

novice was raised by the ordination of Upasampad^, which, 
•differing from the lower form, consisted of a ceremony com- 

* The word " going forth " (pra-yraj) can boused equally well, whether 
the entry upon the condition of a hermit or upon that of a mendicant 
monk be spoken of. " Apastamba," ii, 9, 8. 19. 



THE LOWESl AND THE HIQBER HT/rZiTJO.Y. 3i9 

pleted before tlie Order and by their participation. The oatar 
forma were most simple; tbe old Order was wont when it 
undertook ceremonial operations, to express what had to be 
expressed, with bare business-like precision, and nothing 
more. We find in tho ceremony of ordination nothing o£ the 
ceremonies which we are accustomed to look for in Church 
observances, no sound, in which wo might hear ringing tho 
depths and the poetry of tho rehgious idea. Inatead, we hero 
meet, in trnly Indian fashion, the careful concise expression of 
all the precautions, which the Order takes before admitting a 
new member into their midst. Tiie postolanb speaks before 
the assembled chapter of the monks, cowering reverently on 
the ground, raising his joined hands to his forehead, saying : 
" I entreat tho Order, reverend sirs, for initation. May the 
Order, reverend sirs, raise me up to itself; may it have pity on 
me. And for tho second — and for the third time I entreat 
the Order, reverend airs, for initiation. May the Order, 
reverend sirs, raise me np to itself; may it have pity on me." 
Now follows a formal examination of the postulant. " Hearost 
thou me, N. N. ? Now is the timo como for thee to speak 
truly and to speak honestly. I ask thee, how things are. 
What is, thon must say thereof: It is. What is not, thou 
most say thereof : It is not. Art thou afflicted with any of 
Hie following diseases : leprosy, goitre, white leprosy, consump- 
tion, epilepsy ? Art thou a human being ?* Art thou a man ? 
Art thou thiuo own master ? Hast thou no debts ? Art thou 
not in the royal sorvict:.? Has thou the permission of thy 
father and mother ? Art thoii fall twenty years of ^e ? Hast 
thon the almsbowl and tho garments F What is thy name ? 
"What is thy toftcher'a name ? " If the answer to all these 

* That is, not a serpent-demon in human form, and the like. 




850 THE ORDER AND THE DIOOESES. 

•questions be satisfactory, the motion for the conceding o£ 
initiation is put to the Order and repeated thrice : '^ Reverend 
^irs, let the Order hear me, N. N. here present desires as 
pupil of the venerable N. N. to receive ordination. He is free 
from the obstacles to ordination. He has the almsbowl and 
garments. N. N. entreats the Order for ordination with the 
said N. N. as his teacher. The Order grants N. N, ordination 
with the said N. N. as his teacher. Whoever of the venerable 
is for granting the said N. N. ordination with the said N. N. 
as his teacher, let him be silent. Whoever is against it, let 
him speak.'' If, after thrice repeating this motion, no dissen- 
tient voice is heard, it is declared passed. '^ N. N. has from 
the Order received ordination with the said N. N. as his 
teacher. The Order is in favour of this ; therefore it is silent ; 
thus I understand." Next, when they have measured the 
shadow, i.e., determined the time of day, in order to fix the 
anciennete of the newly-ordained member, and have announced 
the particulars therefore, they communicate to the young 
(member of the Order the four rules of monastic austerity in 
external life : The food of him, who has gone from home into 
iomelessness, shall be the morsels which he receives by 
begging. His clothing shall be made out of the rags which 
he collects. His resting-place shall be under the trees of the 
forest. His medicine shall be the stinking urine of cattle. If 
pious laymen prepare him a meal, if they give him clothing, 
shelter, medicine, it is not forbidden him to take them, but he 
is to look upon this harsh form of mendicancy as the proper 
and appointed mode of life for a monk. 

Finally the four great prohibitions are communicated to the 
member, the fundamental duties of monastic life, by an 
infringement of which the guilty person brings about his 
inevitable expulsion from the Order : — 



TEE FOUR anHAT PROHIBITIONS. 



351 



"An ordained monk may not have sexual iutercoarao, not 
even with an animal. The monk who has sexual interconrse, 
is no longer a monk; he is no disciple of the son of the 
Sakya hoaae. As a man whose head is cut off, cannot live 
with the trunk, so also a monk who practises sesaal intercourse 
ia no longer a monk : he is no disciple of the son of the Sakya 
house. Thou must abstain therefrom all thy life. 

" An ordained monk may not take what has not been given 
to him, what is called a theft — not even a blade of grass. The 
monk, who takes ungiven a pfLda* or a p&da's worth or more 
than a pflda, (commits) what is called a theft, is no longer 
a monk ; he is no disciple of the son of the Sakya 
house. As a dry leaf which has separated itself from the 
stalk cannot again become green, so also a monk, who takes 
ungiven a pada or a pada's worth or more than a pS,da, what 
ia called a theft, is no longer a monkj he is no disciple of the 
son of the Sakya house. Thou must abstain therefrom all 
thy life. 

" An ordained monk may not knowingly deprire any creature 
of life, not even a worm or an ant. The monk, who knowingly 
deprives a human being of life, even by the destruction of 
a foetus, is no longer a monk : he is no disciple of the son 
of the Sakya house. As a great stone, which has been split 
into two parts, cannot again be made into one, so also a monk 
— and BO on- 

"An ordained monk may not boaat of any superhuman 
perfection, as much as to say : ' I like to dwell in an empty 
house.' The monk, who with evil intent and from covotous- 
neaa falsely and untruly boasts of a superhuman perfection,f 

• A coin or a trivial metallic weight. 

t When ne here, next to the offences of an chastity, theft and murder, 
find the false and fraudulent aasnraption of spiritual peifections mentioned 



852 THE ORDER AJW TEE DIOCESES, 

he it a condition of abstraction, or of rapture, or of concentra- 
tion, or of elevation, or of the path of deliverance, or of the 
fruit of deliverance, he is no longer a monk ; he is no disciple 
of the son of the Sakya house. As a palm-tree, the top of 
which has been destroyed, cannot again grow, so also a monk 
— and so on/' 

The communication of these four great prohibitions concludes 
the ceremony of ordination. We see, that in it no liturgical 
elements come to the front which might to a certain extent 
serve to express by solemn symbolism the putting oflf of the 
natural man and the putting on of a new man, or the cohesion 
of the old believers and the young member into a spiritual 
unity.* We have before us merely a process of spiritual law, not 

as the fourth of the major sins, this entitles as to infer, with what offensive 
preference this branch of religious swindling must have been cultivated 
already even in that age in Indian monastic circles. The sacred texts 
("Vinaya Pitaka," vol. iii, p. 87, seq.) narrate as an illastration to 
Buddha's ruling on this point, that a community of monks in the Vajji 
territory once endured great distress by famine. It was proposed that 
they should take service with the laity to obtain the means of living ; 
a more quick-witted monk, however, advised that every brother should 
attribute the highest spiritual perfections to the other brethren in the 
hearing of the laity : " This monk has attained such and such a degree 
of abstraction" — "this monk is a saint" — "this monk possesses the 
threefold knowledge " — and more of the like. The " suggestion is 
accepted, and the laity say in astonishment : " It is lucky, very lucky 
for us that such monks are spending the rainy season in our midst. 
Never in days gone by have monks come to us for the rainy season such 
as these monks are, rich in virtue and noble." Naturally then the 
liberality of the laity corresponds in full to the high opinion which they 
entertain of the spiritual merit of their guests, so that the latter survive 
the period of famine, " blooming, well-fed, with healthy complexion and 
healthy skin." 

^ The assertion often made, that the person entering the Order changes 
^i fianily-iuime for a cloister-name, is erroneous or at any rate supported 



WITHDRAWAL FROM THE ORDER. 



353 



a mystic transformation which comes over anil permoates tho 
person of the ordained. The consequence of this conception, 
as rational as it is bare, ia that there is nothing to prevent tho 
breaking off of the relation thus estabhshed, either on the part 
of tho Order* or on the part of the ordained. If tho latter bo 
guilty of any serious transgression, especiiilly if be infringe 
the four groat prohtbitious, imposed on him at ordination, 
it becomes the right and the duty of the Order to renounce 
him. On the other side, to the moDk, who has a lingering 
fondness for a worldly life, the exit from the Order is always 
open : the Order makes no effort to detuin him. It is better for 
him " to renounce monastic practice and to admit his weakness," 
than, remaining in the spiritiial state, to commit sin. Whoever 
says: "My father is in my thoughts,'' or "my mother is in 
my thonghts," or "my wife is in my thoughts," or "the 
langhter and tho jest, the pleasantry of old days is in my 
thoughts," may return to tho world. Ho can do so silently 
— the Order permits him to depart — ; but tho proper way for 
him is to declare before a witness, who hears and understands 
lum,t his resolution, that he renounces Buddha, the Doctrine, 
and the Order. IIo departs without enmity ; if ho desires 
again to ro-ostabUah his connection as a lay-brother or aa 
a novice with the comrades of his quondam spiritual life, 

only lij solitar; casoa. Anandu, as member of the brotherhood, is colled 
" tho venerablo Anoiida," Kasaajja of UruTolfL is called " the venerable 
Kassapa of Uruvclfi." 

• The technical espression for tliia ifl : the Order "destroys him'' 
(ntliSeti). A list of tho cases in which this occurred— these arc by no 
means confined only to ofFoneca ajrainst the four pLeat prohihitiona — 
may be found compiled in tJic Index to the " Vinaya ri(aka," vol. li, 
p. 3-Mi {a. v. niseti). 

t It does uot appear to have been required that this declaration should 
be made before a monk. Cf. " Vinaya Pitaia," vol. iii, p. 37. 



354 PROPERTT^CLOTHINQ^DWELLINQ^MAmTKNANCE. 

thej do not repel him. Thongli this unlimited possibility of 
recession may have brought evils in its. train — it is admitted^ 
that it has led to gross abuses in the present day* — ^yet its 
influence on the moral health of monastic life may be regarded 
as more beneficial than otherwise. Apart from the fact that 
the Order would have been wholly deficient in the external 
power to bind its members by forcible means of any kind 
whatever, nothing could have been more decidedly opposed to 
the nature of Buddhism than such constraint. Every man 
might go the way which the strength or the weakness of his 
nature, the merit or demerit of past existences led him : the 
doors of the Order stood open, but no impatient or pertinacious 
zeal pressed the reluctant to enter or impeded the return 
of the wayward to the world. 



Peopeety — Clothing — Dwelling — ^Maintenance. 

'^ Community of mendicants '* (Bhikkhusangha) was the name 
given to themselves by this fraternity of fully-accredited, 
ordained monks. This name indicates that among their 
duties that of poverty ranked next in order to chastity. 
This had always been so, ever since there was a monastic 
system in India. A Yedic text belonging to the age of the 
first rudiments of this monasticism says of the Brahmans 

* " It happens every day that monks who have entered the cloister 
under the compulsion of parents, or to avoid the service of the king, or 
from poverty, from laziness, from a love of solitude or of study, or from 
any other worldly motive, again quit the cloister, to succeed to an 
inheritance, to marry, &c. In further India it is even the custom for 
young men, even princes, to assume the monk's cowl for a term only, at 
least for three months/' — K'oppen, i, 338. 



FOTERTT OF THE BUDDHIST MONKS. 

■wKo renounce the world: "They cease from seeking for 
cliildren, and seeking for possessions, and seeking tho 
■worldly, and they itinerate aa beggars. For what seeking 
for children is, that is also seeking for possessions ; what 
seeking lor possessions is, that is also seeking for the worldly ; 
the one is seeking as much as the other,"* So the Buddhist 
monk also renounces all property. No express vow imposes on 
him the duty of poverty; both the marriage tie and the rights 
of property of him who renounces the world, are regarded 
as ipso facto cancelled by the " going forth from home into 
liomeleBsness.'"t Property was felt to be a fetter, which 
holds in bondage the spirit struggling for freedom : " Very 
straitened," it is said, " is life in the home, a state of impurity : 
freedom is in leaving the home" — "Leaving all property 
behind must one go thence" — "In suprfeme felicity live we. 



• " ^tttapatlia Br.," xiv, 7, 2. 26. 

t More accurately oipreased: the monk, who iB resolved to remain 
true to the spiritual life, looks upon liia marriage as dissolved, his 
property as given away. The wife whom lie bas forsaken, is strictly 
termed in the tests " his quondam partner " (puranadiitiyiki, " Mab&- 
vag)j;a," i, 8, 78; " SuttavibLanga," Pi\r. i, 5); lie addressea her, like 
every other woman, aa "Bister" (Par. I.e. § 7). It it in no way 
inconsistent with tliia, if the family of a monk, which deairea his return 
to ft worldly status, looks upon his marriage and his rights of property aa 
continuing, and if he hirnself, longing for a worldly life, says to himself: 
" I have a wife, for whom I must provide ''^" I have a villaRe, on the 
ineome of which I desire to live " — " I have gold, on it I shall Jive " 
(" Snltavibhanga," Pilr, i, 8, 2).— In one direction the apiritual law 
permitted a. noteworthy operation of the old rights of property surrendered 
by the monk to take effect: in certain cases where the reeeiving of 
any new article whatever for monastic house-keeping wag forbidden, 
e.g., a new almsbowl, he was permitted to take the object in question, if 
it had been made for him " from his own means." (" Suttav. Nissaggiyo," 
nil, 2, 2 ; iivi, 2, acq.) Cf. Majr, " Indischcs Erbrecht." p. 145. 




356 PROPERTT^CLOTHINQ'^DWELLINQ'^MAINTENANCE. 

' who possess nothing ; cheerfulness is our diet, as of the gods 
of the regions of light '^ — *^As the bird, wherever he flies, 
carries nothing with him but his wings, so also a monk is 
content with the garment, which he is wearing, with the 
food, which he has in his body. Wherever he goes, he 
everywhere carries his property with him/^ 

The simple needs, which in the climate of India belong to 
the life of a monk, and the common life of a monastic order, 
are easily satisfied. '^ Clothing, food, lodging, medicine for 
the sick ^' — this is the standing enumeration of what the Order 
looked for from the pious beneficence of the laity, and seldom 
looked for in vain. What did not come within the narrow 
circle of these immediate necessaries of life, could as little 
coDstitute part of the property of the Order as that of the 
individual monk.* Lands, slaves, horses and live stock, the 
Order did not possess, and was not allowed to accept. It did 
not engage in agricultural pursuits, nor did it permit them to 
be carried on on its account. ^^ A monk,^^ as the old confes- 
sional formula says, ^^ who digs the earth or causes it to be 

* That the Order was allowed to have any kind of possession whatever, 
which was forbidden to the individual brethren, has been often asserted, 
but, as far I can see, quite groundlessly. The more important items of 
property which belonged to the Order, coidd not indeed by gift or divi- 
sion pass into the possession of individual monks (" Cullavagga," vi, 16, 
16), but it was not unallowable for a monk to possess things of this 
description (" Mahavagga," viii, 27, 5). Then after his death they feU 
into the property of the " Church of the four quarters of the world, the 
present and the absent," while smaller articles of a deceased monk were 
divided among the brethren with a special regard for those who had 
attended to him during his sickness. Mention, however, is made of 
death-bed bequests : ** A nun said when dying : after my death my 
property is to go to the Order '* (" Cull.," x, ii). Whether any other heirs 
but th? Order of the monks or of the ntms could be nominated, is not 
known. 



FOVERTY OF TEE MONKS. 357 

du^, is liable to punish ment."* But most strictly was the 
receiving of gold and Bilver forbidden to BuddWs disciploB, 
indiyidofllly as well as collectively. The benefactor, who 
desires to give a monk not the things themselves which he 
reqnires, bnt their money valae, delivers the money to 
operatives, and the monk then receives from them what is 
intended for him. The provisions of the rules of the Order to 
meet the case, where a brother permits gold or silver to bo 
tendered to him in spite of the prohibition, show how lively 
was the feeling of what was here at stake for the spirit of their 
common life, and how care was taken with an anxiety which has 
something touching about ifc, to guard against the dangerous 
conse'iuencea of such sinful greed. When the guilty monk 
has penitently confessed his transgression beforo the as- 
sembled monks, if ono of the laity attached to the Order be in 
the neighbourhood, the gold is given to him, with these words : 
"Friend, take this into thy keeping." If he wishes, he can 
Utan purchase for the monks what they are permitted to 
receive, butter, oil, or honey. This they may all enjoy ; only 
he who has received the gold, is not allowed to havo any share 
of it. Or the layman may cast the gold away. If it is not 
possible for the Order to get rid of the dangerous possession 
in this way, one of the brethren is to be chosen to he the 
"thrower away of the gold,^' who has five quahtiea: who is 

• Of Buddha's Order the same may bo said which tlie BrahmajMa 
Sutta represents people saying to each other regarding Buddha Limself ; 
"From reoeivi UK bondsmen and bondswomen, tlie ascetic Gotamarefir^s 
— -from, receiving elephants, cattle, horses and mares, the ascetic Gotama 
refrwns — from receiving arable laud the ascetic Gotama refrains." In 
the Tinaya texts, accordingly, nothiag ia found which points to the 
pursuit of agriculture, except only one, quite solitary passage, "Majia- 
raggft," vi, 39, which hardly refers to anything more than the occasional 
sowing of seed in the land belonging to the Aramas. 



868 PBOPEBTT^-CLOTHINa''DWELLING^MAINTENjLNCE. 

. free from desire^ free from hate^ free from infatnatioiij free 
from fear^ and who knows what casting away and what not 
casting away means. He is to throw the gold or the silver away> 
and is to take care that the place where it lies is not to be 
recognized by any sign. If he makes any signs, he is liable to 
punishment. Already at an early date severe struggles arose 
in the Order regarding this prohibition of the receipt of gold 
and silver,^ but it was successfully maintained in its integrity 
for centuries. By nothing so clearly as by this prohibition 
and by the obedience which it has obtained, is it guaranteed 
that the ancient Buddhist Order did really remain free and pure 
from all hankering after worldly power as well as worldly 
enjoyment. Never could it have so completely surrendered 
the possession of gold and therewith all possibility of outer 
action, had it not been in truth precisely that alone which it 
professed to be, a community of those who sought for peace 
and deliverance in separation from everything earthly. 

The dwelling, food, and clothing of the monks are laid down 
in detailed regulations. The character of these rules is very 
decided: the abstaining from everything which implies comfort- 
able enjoyment, being at one's ease in worldly possessions, 
is just as urgently demanded, as on the other side excesses of 
ascetic praxis are wholly eschewed. Here we find none of 
those strange features^ with which a fanciful inquirer has 
recently made up the picture of what he calls original 
Buddhism: a society of ascetics, who were allowed to live 
under no roof, but to pass their whole life under the open 
heavens, sitting in cremation-grounds or under trees, whose 
whole appearance bears upon it the stamp of deformity and 

* Apparently in the Council of Vesali (circ. one century after Buddha's 
death) the dispute touching the receipt of gold and silver was the 
particularly essential among a series of secondary and subtle di&rences. 



CBABACTEB OF TEE RULES OOVERNINa OUTER LIFE. 36'J 

impurity.* In trath all negligence in outer appearance, 
especially in clothing, is most strictly tabooed. In the case of 
younger monks, who are placed under the superintend enco of an 
elder brother, the latter has to pay attention to the appearance 
of those committed to his care ; he is required to see, that they 
make their clothes right, dye them, and wash them properly. 
The sanitation and ventilation of the quarters occupied by the 
monks, the cleaning of furniture, the aunniog of all articles 
that require it, are prescribed with the greatest minuteness in 
the works on the rales of the Order. Touching the greater or 
less degree of abstinence from the necessities and comforts 
of regular life, a certain freedom is allowed to the individual, 
to allow scope for his individual likes and dislikes. Whoever 
"wished might take a vow to live only on the food which he 
might obtain on his begging expedition from house to house, 
but no one was forbidden to accept the invitations of pioua 
laymen to dine, and wo read that Buddha himself accepted 
such invitations on numberless occasions. Whoever wished 
might patch together rags, which ho had collected, to make 
bimaelf a monk's yellow garment ; wandering monks, who 
liappened to come to a cremation-ground, ui^ed perhaps to 
'gather there the shreds from which they made their clothes. 

• " WasaiJjew, der BudclhiBiaus," p. 16, scq. (of the Germaa transla- 
tion). Inter alia, it is there said i " !□ fact we sco the Buddliu in the 
leKenda, notwithstanding the specioua splendour with which they invesl 
hiin.eTcry day in bia own person going out of the grovo of Aniithapindika 
and wmlking to the nearcat town to totleiit alms. In the face of this, 
what mcanini,' have the eloiBter rules, the directions for associated life, 
and whatever elfic of the kind meets us in the VinajaP Is it consistEnt 
with this, that a host of aeliolars surround the Buddha and hare satiated 
themselTes with his doctrine and hare taught others ?" Of course, how 
could scholars indeed satiate themselves with the teaching of a man, who 
daily goes out of a wood in person 1 



360 PROPERTY^CLOTHINQ^DWELLINO-'MAINTKNANOJS. 

But no one was forbidden to dress himself in' the garments^ 
which laymen presented to the monks.. "I grant you, monks, 
that he who wears clothes given by the laity,. may also wear 
clothes made up from gathered rags. If you have a fancy for 
both, monks, I have no objection to it."* Whoever wished, 
might dwell in the forest or in the caves of the mountains, but 
no one was forbidden to take up his abode near a village or a 
town. With sticks gathered in the forests, and grass, every 
monk could easily construct a hut for himself, and laymen not 
unfrequently even lent their assistance or caused building 
operations to be carried on at their expense for the Order, so 
that monks* houses (vih&ras), detached buildings or a complex 
whole, with assembly-rocras, council-chambers, diuing-halls, 

. * The following passage of the " Thcragathii ** (fol. khe) describes 
briefly and grapliically the life of a monk, wlio adheres to the stricter 
ordinances in dress, food, and so on : " In solitude and quiet where the 
wild beasts have their dwelling and the gazelles, there let the abode of 
the monk be, that he may be able to dwell in retirement and seclusion. 
On dunghills, on cremation-grounds, and on the streets, let him seek 
wherewith ho may prepare himself clothing ; rough let the garment be 
which he wears. With submissive air let the monk move, watching the 
idoors of his senses and keeping himself in check, from house to house in 
order tobeg for food. Let him be content also with poor food ; let him not 
desire anything else, many savoury things. He who is fond of savoury 
things, his spirit is not fond of abstraction. Needing nothing, content, 
apart from the world, let the wise man live ; layman and anchorite, both 
let him avoid. Like a dumb or a deaf man let him show himself; let 
him not speak, who is wise, at an imseasonable moment in the Order." 
The dangers, which forest life must daily and hourly cause to spiritual 
personages, were obviously not fewer in those days than now, when year 
after year hermits are killed in hundreds by snakes and wild beasts in 
Indian forests. A particular section of the sacred texts, entitled " the 
imminent dangers of forest life," contains admonitions to zealous 
acceleration of spiritual effort, when every moment may bring vicdent 
death. 



DWELLING. .361 

structures for warm baths and ablutions, as well for the Order 
in its entirety as for the members individually, were at their 
disposal.* On the whole ,we have undoubtedly to picture to 
ourselves monks, those eviBn who had chosen a life in the 
forests,t dwelling rather in huts or houses than under the 
open sky, perchance under the shade of a tree. Even wan- 
derers had as a rule a shelter at their disposal. Novices and 
scholars used generally to go on ahead and see that quarters 
were prepared for their teachers among the communities, 
whose places of residence they passed through. The younger 
brethren went out to meet the older monks, who came on their 
wanderings; they took their overalls and almsbo wis from them, 
got water ready for them to wash their feet and showed them 
to their quarters for the night. During, the three months of 
the rainy season in which itinerating ceased, the monks were 
expressly forbidden to resort to a place of rest in the open, 
at the foot of a tree. Thus the tradition of the Singhalese 
represents Mahinda, the converter of the island, and his 
spiritual companions, before the rainy season sets in, dwelling 

* We are not to think of the viharas of ancient times as cloisters, 
which had been erected for the reception of a great number of residents. 
On the whole it seems to have been the rule, that one vihara accom- 
modated only one monk ; such viharas usually lay near one another in 
greater or smaller numbers. The vihara is described as especially great 
which is mentioned in the *' Cullavagga *' (vi, 11), in which seventeen 
monks arranged themselves for a rainy season. Six other monks 
come thither, and still there is room for them also. Possibly we have to 
look upon both parties as accompanied by scholars, novices, and so forth. 
Stone, brick, and wood are named as the usual materials for the buildings 
of the Order. 

t Compare the rules for the house and the day for monks living in the 
forest, which we read in the " Cullavagga/' viii, 6. The stately vihara, 
which the venerable Udayi had built for himself in the forest, is described 
in the " Suttavibhanga," Sangh. ii, 1, 1. 



3G2 FROPERTT—CLOTHISO—DWELLIxa-MAINTENANCE. 

near the capital in a park, which the king had placed at their 
disposal, "with a good view and rich in shade, adorned with 
flowers and fruit, truly lovely . . . there is a beautiful 
lotus pool, covered with lotuses, white and blue ; there is froah 
water in beautiful springs, scented by sweet flowers." But 
when the rainy season comes round, when in India damp 
weather sets in — in Ceylon itself these are the finest months of 
the whole year — Mahiuda leaves the park and goes with the 
other monks to the mountain of Missaka, there to provide 
himself accommodation in the holes of the rocks. The kinp 
hears of this and hastens out : " Why hast thou left me and 
mine and come to this mountain?''' And Mahinda rephes: 
" Here we wiah to pass the rainy reason, three months long. 
Near a village or in the forest, or in a dwelling-place, the door 
of which can he shut, has Buddha commanded the monks to 
dwell, when the rainy season comes."* Then the king gives 
an order for eight and sixty cells to be hollowed out in the 
rock for the monks — cells snch as throughout the whole o£ 
India and Ceylon, lying often several stories one over Ha 
other, still mark indelibly to-day the old rallying points utA 
centres of monastic life. 

In the village itself, or in a town, the monk is not permitted 
to reside except in cases of urgent necessity, nor even as wjun 
as to set foot in them between noon and the appearance of 
dawn on the following day.f But he is tied to the neighbour 



* With tliis pasBageof the " Dipftvatiisa " (14,64) compare the ralncT 
tho Order on this subject, " MohiivaKea," iiJ, 12, 

t " Pacittija," 85. On one occasion when Buddha in Lis wuideBUS* 
approafhes hia native town, Kapilavatthu, he sends on one of thefaithUi 
saying : " Go, Mah&D&ma, and aceli in Kapilaratthu a lodging, in wUA 
lean find shelter to-day for one nisht" (" Anguttara Mik.," voLiiU- 
jhau). Instances of this kind oi;cu7 only quite isolated. 



BWELUSa— DAILY BEQamO EXCURSION. 3G3 

hood of village and town by the necessity of supporting life. 
Even he, who has taken a vow to live in tha forest, lives just 
near enough to the village to be able to reach it on his begging 
cxcuraion.* Carrying in his hands the bowl, in which ho 
places the food handed to him, he is to go from house to house, 
"whether believers dwell in them or unbelievers; only he is to 
pass by the houses of poor people, of whom the Order know 
that they would give the begging monks food beyond what 
they could afiord, and would then themselves to suffer hunger. 
Enveloped in his overall, with downcast look, without bustle, and 
leither hasty nor careless fashion, the monk is to enter the 
houses. He is not to stand too near nor too far off, he is not to 
stay too long nor to go away too quickly. Ho is to wait in 
Bilence, until something is given to him ; then he is to hold 
lut hia bowl, and, without looking at the face of the giver, 
receive what she gives him. Then he spreads his overall over 
the almsbowl, and goes slowly on. "When they leave the 



" Cullavagga," viii, 6. For illustration take tho ii 
"Commentary on the DLammapada," p. 81, seq. Tte aaintly monk 
P&lita comea with sixty accompenyiog brethren in Lis wanderings, wbcn 
the rainy season ia near, to a ffteat village, and makes his begging-cxt^ur- 
lion through it. " The people aaw these monka, who were adorned with 
light demeanour, and they prepared seats for them with believing heart, 
invited them to sit down, entertained them with the best food, and asked 
them : ' Eevercnd Birs, whither does your way lie ? ' They replied ; 
•Where we may find a place good to dwell in, behever.' The elorer 
people saw : ' The venerable men are looking for a dwelling and an abode,' 
and they said ; ' If you, venerable aira, be willing to dwell hero for these 
three months, wo shall take our refuge in the faith, and obaerve tbc 
requirements of upright life.' Pa,li(a accepts the invitation, whereon the 
villagers erect a viliara in the forest (I.e. p. 85, line 13). Thence tbc 
jnonks go every morning into the village to collect alms. When one of 
the monks becomea bLnd, and can go no longer to the village, the 
iresidents of the village send him food daily into tho forest." 



364 PROPERTT—CLOTHINO^DWELLING— MAINTENANCE. 

village/' says an old poem,* ''they look back on nothing. 
Without looking ronnd they walk about ; therefore dear to me 
are the monks/' When the monk has returned from the 
begging excursion, there follows about midday the hour for 
eating, the one meal in the whole day. " The monk,'' it is 
said in the confessional formula, '' who at an improper timet 
takes or enjoys hard or soft food, is liable to punishment.^^ 
The meal consists chiefly, as Indian custom requires, of bread 
and rice, with which water is drunk. The enjoyment of flesh 
and fish is limited ; spirituous liquors are most strictly for- 
bidden. 

For a monk to dwell alone, without having other brethren in 
his neighbourhood, is quite the exception, even in the case of 
those who have chosen a forest-life. The provisions of the 
laws of the Order are wholly based on the supposition that 
small knots of brethren living near each other come together, 
who depend on each other to unite for confession, to instruct 
one another, to strengthen one another in doubt and temptation, 
to care for one another in sickness, and to keep up spiritual 
discipline among themselves. " For," says the old confessional 
formula, " the band of the disciples of the Exalted One is so 
bound together that one exhorts the other and one stablishes 
the other." Especially on the young monk is it enjoined as a 
duty to seek the company of the older and more experienced 
brethren, to be instructed in the doctrines of the faith as well 
as in the external rules of conduct, even down to the directions 
for the wearing of clothes and carrying of the almsbowl. 
During the first five years, which every monk passes in the 
Order, he is required to place himself under the guidance and 

* " Therigatha," fol. ni. 

i* I.e., between the hour of midday and the dawn of the following day. 



LIFE IN THE COHmUNlTT AKD IN SOLITUDE. SeS 

inBtmction of two able monks,* who shall have belonged for 
at least ten years to the Order. These he accompanies in 
their wanderings and bogging excursions ; he looks after the 
cleaning of their cellsj and serves them at their meals. " The 
teacher is to look upon the scholar as a son ; the scholar is to 
look npon the teacher as a father. Thus both aro to permit 
respect, attachment and. unanimity of life to prevail between 
■them, that they may be able to grow, progress, and stabliah 
themselves in this Doctrine and this Law."t " He who has left 
his home for tho faith, be who has come hither in early years 
and is young, let him attach bimaelf to noble friends, to 
unwearying persona of pure walk. He who has left bis home 
for the faith, who has come hither in early years and is young, 
a monk who is intelligontj let him abide in the Order and 
practise tho rules ."J 

There was nothing in the way of differences of rank in the 
circles of bretba-en, but the natural privileges and claims to 
respect, which belong to greater seniority — i.e. to the greater 
length of spiritual standing, which was reckoned from the date 
of ordination. In the proceedings, which had to be conducted 
before the Ordur, any " experienced and able monk" conld tako 
the initiative. The numerous ofBce-bearers whom we find 
mentioned bear by no means a hierarchical character; they 
have to do chiefly with the care of external necessities and the 
discharge of domestic duties; thus there was a caretaker of 
the sleeping places, a caretaker of the council chambers, a rice 
distributor, a fruit distributor, the overseer of the novices, and 



• One oE them is ilenominatod Upajjhaya, the other Aoariya (both 
ore Bynonymous for " teacher "). As to the relation of these two appoiut- 
ments, see Davids's and my note to " Mahuvagga," i, 32. 

t " Mahavagga," i, 25, 6 ; 33, 1. 

+ ■■ TUeragittlia," fol. kau". 



aGG FROFERTr—CLOTHma— DWELLING— MAMTEliASCE. 

other similar officers. As unanimity waa necessary as a genera! 
rule in moat of the resolutions of the Order, these appointmenta 
also dependi?d as a whole on the unanimous choice of &e 
brethren present in the diocese. 

Ordinary labour of any kind whatever was always foreign tO 
this monastic life ; it was deeply embedded iu the BuddMst 
conception of the moral that the educative value of labonr 
could not be acknowledged here. The whole life and all tte 
energies were claimed for spiritual exercises. Already at early 
mom, before the hour for begging excursions had arrived, io 
the chambers of the vih&ras, in the halls and under the trees 
of the cloister- garden 8, might be heard the monotonous, half- 
Binging recitation of the sacred sayings and discourses of 
Buddha. The oldest of the brethren present himaelf recited 
or directed one of the others to recite. Or there came forward, 
as questioner and answerer, two of the brethren who were 
versed in the rules of the Order, and discoursed before tte 
assembly on important and difficult points of monastic law and 
of rules of the Order,* Then after the bogging excursion, 
after dinner and the boors of rest which followed, when 
evening brought the brethren again together, they sat on far 
into the night — the time allotted to the monks for sleeping 
was very scantt — silently or iu converse with one anotlier. 
There were also times when friends made compacts with each 
other, like that of Anuruddha and his two comrades, who kept 
awake one night every five days, propouuding the Doctrine and 
discussing it together. J "He who abides in the Order," we 

" la thia form of discussion, which is treated of at "Mah&ragKi."ii> 
16, 6-11, the proceedingB, for iastance, of the Council at Tea&li Kgvdii^ 
the ten disputed points of the rulea of the Order were carried on {p. 313). 

t The regular time for rising was about dawn, 
" MahtLvagga," x, 4, S, 



LIFE IN THE COMMUNITF AHJ) IN SOLITUDE. 3G7 

.Teadj* "talks not of many topics and talks not of vulgar 
things. He expounds tlio word himaelE, or stirs another np to 
its exposition, or he estoemB even sacred silence not lightly." 

Of the very profane iuterruptiona to which sacred silence 
was liable, especially at the greater centres of monastic life, 
at places where hundreds, probably sometimea, indeed, thou- 
sands of monks flocked together from all parts of India, the 
texts do not speak very much with relish. An old veraef 
eays with special reference to the spiritual brothers : " Like 
Brahma men live alone; like gods they live in twos; like 
a village they live in threes ; where there are more there is 
bustle and turmoil." Particularly in the last clause of this 
Baying will lie fully concur who lias seen and especially who 
taa heard the commotion of a crowd of people, or better still 
of a crowd of wrangling and scolding faqirs in India, Thus 
many among Buddha's disciples withdrew from tho bustle of 
the masses, from the great dramas in the neighbourhood of 
the towns into the solitude of the forest. J There they lived 
in the huts they bnilt for themselves, in small communities, in 
twos or threes, or oven quite alone and only just near enough 

• " Angnttara Nikiya," vol, iii, fol. ki. 

t "Theragathil," fol. kau'. 

X The comparative estimation of solitude aftd of life with others could 
naturally be only a purely personal matter, and bo it appears ia the sacred 
text*. Sometimes we read eipressiong like these : " Let him aeek out 
remote places, therein to dwell ; there let him. walk, that he may become 
free from all bands. If he does not find peace there, let him live in the 
Order, Ruarding his soul from sinB with watchful spirit " (" SaTiiy. N.," 
qnotsd in the " Milinda Pm'dia," p. 402). And then it ia said again : " If 
lie finds a wise associate, a noble comrade of upright walk, thea let him 
live with him, overcoming all temptation, cheerful and with a watchful 
■piiit. If he does not find a wise asiociatc, a noble comrade of upright 
walk, then let him go forth alone, as a ting who abandons his conquered 
kingdom, like the elephant into tho forest " (" Dhammap.," 328, seq.). 



.368 PBOPEBTT-^CLOTHma^DWELUSG^UAINTSNJiNCE. 

to others to be in reach of one another for holding the meetings 
of the chapter pi*escribed for confessional and other purposes. 
Perhaps nowhere have the sayings of Buddha^ the earnest 
thoughts of the saflFering of everything earthly, and the great, 
pure expectations of the happy cessation of impermanence, so 
fully satisfied human hearts, as among these anchorites in their 
small and quiet forest bands. *' When shall 1/^ says one of 
the spiritual poets,* ^' dwell alone in mountain grotto without 
companions, viewing instability in every form of being? When 
will such be my lot ? When shall I, as a sage clad in garments 
made of rags, in yellow garb, calling nothing my own and' 
without occupation, desisting from love and hate, ceasing from 
infatuation, dwell cheerfully in the forest ? When shall I, 
seeing the instability of my body, which is a nest of murder 
and disease, oppressed by old age and death, dwell free from 
fear, alone in the forest ? When will such be my lot ? " '' The 
broad, heart-cheering expanses, crowned by kareri forests, those 
lovely regions, where elephants raise their voices, the rocks 
make me glad. Whore the rain rushes, those lovely abodes, 
the mountains, where sages walk, where the peacock's cry 
resounds, the rocks make me glad. There is it good for me 
to be, the friend of abstraction, who is struggling for salvation. 
There is it good for me to be, the monk, who pursues the true 
good, who is struggling for salvation. ^'f ^o^ ^ many places 
on earth will the charms of contemplative solitude have been 
enjoyed so fully as there, in the forests on the Ganges and at 
the foot of the Himalaya, among the yellow-robed monks of 
Buddha's Order. 

* " Theragatha," fol. gau. 
t " Theragatha," fol. go. 



THE CULTU8, 369 

The Cultus. 

Twice in the month, at full moon and at new moon, the 
monks of each district, wherever they may happen to be 
sojoaming, come together to celebrate the fast-day.* 

The observance of the fast-day is the most prominent and 
almost the only observance of the ancient Buddhist cultus, if the 
word " cultus '^ can be at all applied to these most simple and 
plain external forms of mutual religious life. For a faith, which 
looks upon man's own heart as the sole place in which decisions 
between happiness and ruin can be carried into effect, what 
the lip utters and what the hand does, can have a value only in 
so far as it is a concomitant of, a symbol corresponding to, 
that internal process. And above all in the first age of the 
young Buddhist community must that very opposition to the 
old faith with its ceremoniousness, with its animal sacrifices 
and soma-ofEerings, with its hosts of singing and mumbling 
priests, have been especially keenly felt and led to the result, 
that so much the more earnest heed was taken to preserve the 
internal character of the individual faith free from every non- 
essential. We must keep before us the fact, that anything in 
the way of a mysterium, such as that from which the early 
Christian cultus drew its vitality, was foreign to Buddhism ; 
the conception that the divine Head of the Church is not absent 
from his people, but that he dwells powerfully in their midst 
as their lord and king, so that all cultus is nothing else but 
the expression of this continuing living fellowship. Buddha, 
however, has entered into Nirv&na ; if his believers desired to 
invoke him, he could not hear them. Therefore Buddhism is a 

* The designation of this day as a fast-day rests on the ancient usages 
of the Yedic cultas. With an actual fast the Buddhist Order had 
nothing to do. 

24 



370 THE CULTUS. 

religion without prayer. The preaching of Buddha's doctrine, 
the practice of spiritual abstractions, in which they thought 
they possessed so powerful an aid to religious eflfort, permeated 
the whole life of the brethren, but they found no expression in 
the forms of a regulariy organized cultus ; for this last there 
was little room left in that universal sway, conceivable only in 
a monastic Order, of religious thought over every word which 
the believer utters, and over every step he takes. 

Among the operations of this quasi-cultus stands, as already 
mentioned, in precedence of everything else, the confessional 
celebration observed on the " fast-day ,'' the check, so to speak, 
employed to determine whether the duties of spiritual life have 
been truly and fully performed by all the brethren. These 
confessional meetings give above all a lively expression to the 
cohesion of the members of the Order. 

The eldest among the monks in every district calls the 
meeting, and at evening on the fast-day all the brethren, who 
are sojurning within the limits of the diocese, come together in 
the vih&ra chosen for the purpose or whatever other place is 
selected by the Order, be it a building or a cave in the moun- 
tain. No one is permitted to absent himself. Only in the case 
of insanity can a dispensation be granted, and sick brethren 
can be allowed to remain away, if they can cause an assurance 
of their purity from the transgressions mentioned in the con- 
fessional formula to reach the assembled brethren through a 
comrade. If there be no odo to convey this assurance, the 
invalid must be brought on his chair or on his bed to the 
assembly, or if this cannot be done without danger to him, the 
Order must go in a body to his bedside for the celebration. 
But under no circumstances is it permitted to go through the 
sacred office in an assembly short of the full number. 

By the light of a torch the monks take their places in the 



CONFESSIONAL ASSEMBLIES. 371 

place of assembly on the low seats prepared for tbem. No 
layman, no novice, no nun may be present, fur the law o£ the 
Order, which, is now to be recited in the form of a confessional 
lormala, is regarded as a reserved possession of tho monks 
alone.* This confessional formula, the liturgy Piitimokkha 
{"anburdening"), the oldest of the brethi'en, or he who 
etherwise ahlo and qualified, now recites with a loud voice : — 

Reverend sirs," lie says, "let the Order hear me. To-day 
is £aat-day, the fifteenth of tho half month. If the Order is 
leady, let the Order keep fast-day and have the formula of 
confession recited. What must the Order do first ? Report 
lia declaration of purity, reverend sirs.f I shall recite the 
brmula of confession." 

* " The monk, who makea an unordained person a partaker verbatim of 
he Dhamma, is liable to punishment'' (" Pili'ittiya," 4). I believe, not 
iltogethcr in harmony nith tbe ancient comntcntator iu ibis passage, 
hat by the tenu Dliamma the masima of the confessional formula of tho 
^attmokkba are to be understood. It can hardlj be assumed that a 
Qonk, wlio, like Mabinda, for esample, before the Cejlonese king, 
etailed the sayings or preacbings of Buddba, thereby incurred tbe 
lenftlty of an offence. There were, moreover, among the laity themselves 
'preachers of the Dbamma " (dbammakatliika), as the first of whom 
^ittais mentioned byname in one of the sacred texts (" AnguttaraNikilya," 
ol. i, near tho beginning) ; and similarly the case is mentioned iu the 
Vinayo," where a layman summons tbe monks to deliver to them 
B discourse of Buddha's, with which he is acquainted, and of which 
(he knowledge ia in danger of being lost (" Mohivagga," iii, 6, 9). 
Aa regards tbe character of the F^ttinokkha as a secret lore, cf. 
Milinda Panha," p. 190, seq. From this it also follows, when tradition 
sprcsouts a persoa like tho young Moggsliputta, who is put forward as 
le model of a quickly progressing scholar, as still IcarnLng during tbe 
four years of his noviciate only the collections of the Suttas and tlie 
.bhidhamma, that the Tinaya was an Arcanum, which became accessible 
to him after his ordination, and not till then. — Vivaj/a Pitaka, vol. iii, 
p. 299. 
t I-e., the declaration iu tbe name of the brethren absent on account of 

24* 



372 TEE CULTUB. 

The Order present replies : '' We all, who are here present, 
hear and consider it well/' 

'^ Whoever has committed a transgression/' the leader goes 
on, ''let him confess it. Where there is no transgression, 
let him be silent. From yoor silence I shall infer that yon are 
clear, reverend sirs. As an individual man, to whom a ques- 
tion is put, is supposed to answer, so is it in the case of an 
assembly, like the present, when the question has been put 
three times. A monk, who on the question being put three 
times does not confess a fault, which he has committed and 
which he remembers, is guilty of an intentional lie. But 
intentional lying, reverend sirs, brings destruction ;* thus has 
the Exalted' One said. Therefore a monk, who has committed 
a fault, remembers it, and seeks to be pure therefrom, is to 
confess his fault. For what he confesses, will lie lightly on 
him.'' 

Now the enumeration of the transgressions which are to be 
confessed begins. The most serious stand first, those four sins, 
of which every newly entering brother is already warned 
at ordination, that whoever commits them, can no longer 
belong to the Order (p. 351). "If a monk," the leader 
begins, " who has chosen the exercises and the fellowship of 
the monks, has carnal intercourse with any creature whatever, 
down even to a beast, without renouncing these exercisesf and 
without admitting his weakness, then this involves a defeat 
(by evil) and expulsion from the Order." Similar terms deal 
with the three other gravest sins, thefb, murder, and the false 
assumption of spiritual perfections. At the close of this 

sickness, that they have committed no transgression entimerated in the 
confessional formula. 

* Le., it prevents the attainment of sanctification. 

t ile., leaving the Order. 



enumeration of transgressionsj whicli bring with thorn " defeat 
and expulsion from the Order," the leader turns himself to the 
brethren present with the thrice repeated question : " Here 
now I ask the venerable : Are you free from those transgres- 
sions ? And for the eocond time I aak : Are you free ? For 
the thii-d time I aak; Are yon free ?" And if all are silont* — 

Free are the venerable from these, therefore tlioy aro silent; 
80 I take it." 

The enumeration is now directed to the less sorioua trans- 
gtesaions, to those, wliich the Order visits with a temporary 
degradation, and to those, which are atoned for without 
any action of the Order by the mere admission of the guilty 
party. For example, it is said : — 

" The monk who lowers himself to touch a woman's person 
with corrupt thoughts, while he clasps her hand or clasps her 

* The wcprding of the formula shows bejond doubt, that nccording to 
the original intention anyone who felt himself guilty of a trnjisgreBaion, 
had at this point to coufcBs it before the Order, The lalor texts (" Khan- 
dhakct*') ^i^e directions which are at rarianco with this coniitructioii. No 
one could carry unatoned f^uilt witli him into the FOnfessianul ineetmg_ 
He had previously to confees and, where any penance is attached, perform 
AIbo when he culls to mind an oSence first only during the oelebra- 
iioD, he has not to answer the question of the leader, but he has to 
sbsolvQ hiiuReir, by anticipation as it were, for the period of the 
celebration, by saying to Lis neighbour : " Friend, I have committed this 
and that ofience ; when I shall have risen from this place, I shall purify 
IDfWlf therefrom." Whoever was cognizant of the transgression of 

lother, had to hold the guilty party to penance before the celebration 
of tlie confesaiou, or " to forbid the confession " in liis case by veto, 
until he had complied with his duty. We sec in this maxim : " No man, 
on whom a tranEgression lies, is allowed to keep the ceremony of the fast- 
day ■' (" Mahavagga," ii, 27 ; cf. " Cullavagga," ii, 2) clearly the more 
acrupulons conception of a late period, as compared with the old institu- 
tion, which had created the obeerranco of the fast-day quite particularly 
for thoae who were burdened by a sense of guilt. 




374 THE CULTU8. 

hair or touches one part or another of her body, the Order 
inflicts on him degradation/' 

'*The monk who in any house belonging to the Order 
knowingly so arranges his quarters that he thereby in- 
commodes a monk who has come before him, and says within 
himself : ' Who finds it too narrow, may go out/ having just 
this and nothing else in view ; he is guilty of sin/^ 

*^ The monk who in anger or enmity extrudes a monk from 
a house belonging to the Order, or causes him to be extruded, 
he is guilty of sin/' 

In this manner, in more than two hundred paragraphs 
thrown together somewhat unsystematically, are specified 
those injunctions, which govern the daily life of the monks, 
their residence, eating and drinking, clothing, and their 
intercourse with each other and with nuns and laity. Even 
the most external and the most trivial matter finds a place ; 
to the painful fondness for rule, which is here traceable in 
every word, nothing is unessential. In the fact that the 
Buddhist Order has not been able to invest its most prominent 
liturgical creation with any other form than that of a para- 
graphic collection of monastic rules we may perhaps detect an 
element of illiberality ; but insipidity and paltriness he alone 
will call it, to whom serious and scrupulous obedience to rule 
even in the most trivial matters appears insipid and paltry. 

Next to the half-monthly confessional days the yearly 
recurring simple and beautiful celebration must be borne 
in mind, which bears the name of invitation (PavdranA). 
When the three months of the rainy season have gone by, 
before the wandering begins, the brethren in each diocese, 
who have passed this time in common retirement — they are 
for the most part friends closely attached to each other — ^unite 
in a solemn conference, in which every one, from the oldest to 



THE HASM0S7 OF INFITATIO:^!. 



375 



the yoangest, sittinfr in a reverential attitude on the ground, 
T»Biiig his clasped hands, aeks his spiritoal comrades, if he 
has been guilty of any sin daring thia period, to name it to 
him. "Reverend sirs," it ia then said, "I invite the Order, 
if ye have seen anything on my part, or have heard anything, 
or have any suspicion about me, have pity on me, reverend 
BITS, and speak. If I see it, I shall atone for it."* 

In these few ceremonious observances has been described 
the narrow range of that, which, with the disciples of Buddha, 
takes the place of regular acts of public worship. It will 
be seen that this ciiltus, if wo wish to call it so, goes only into 
the outer court of the religious life j it has only to do with 
maintaining among the monks external correctness in decent 
behaviour and dealing. Whatever goes beyond this, the 
keeping up ot instructive meditation and religious concentra- 
tion, is left wholly to tho unfettered action of the individual 
brother, of the individual group of brethren. 

It may be here observed that at least the first mdimenta of 
6 enltus of another stamp, separated in broad distinction from 
that which wo have discussed, go back into the times with 
which our sketch has to deal ; the rudiments of the veneration 
attaching to holy places and to Buddha's relics. Four places, 
it is said,t ai-e deserving that believing, noble youths should 

* Aocording to the original custom every one tlien, as a matter of 
course, said what he had to say in reply to tUis appeal, and when doubts 
esisted, these were explained before the Order. The "EliandLata Texts" 
here adopted apparently, exactly as we have already (note p. 373) eoerv 
they did in tho confessional celebration, the standpoint of a later age. 
Ho one, it is said in this connection, who ia under the burden of guilt, 
can take part in the solemnization of the " Invitation ;'' what every one 
"haa to cast up to the other, must be preyionsly brought to an issue. — 
Mah. iv, 6 i 16, 

f '• Mah&pnrinibbSna Sntta," p. 51. 



376 THE CVLTU8. 

see them and that their hearts should be moved by them : 
the place where the holy Buddha was bom ; the place where 
he has obtained the highest illumination ;* the place where he 
has *' set in motion the Wheel of the Law,'' the place where he, 
delivered from everything earthly, has entered into the perfect 
Nirvftna. To these places monks and nuns, lay-brothers and 
lay-sisters have a desire to travel. '^Por he, O Ananda, who 
dies in the faith on the pilgrimage to such holy places, will, 
when his body dissolves, beyond death, walk the good road 
and be bom again in the heavenly world/' 

The care of Buddha's relics and the institution of festivals in 
their honour are committed exclusively to the piety of believing 
laity. *'What are we to do," Ananda asks of the Master, 
when his end is drawing near,f '^with the body of the 
Perfect One ?" *' Let not the honours due to the body of the 
Perfect One trouble you, O Ananda. Seek ye rather holiness, 
O Ananda; be intent on holiness: live in holiness without 
blemish, in holy haste, seeking after perfection. There are, 
Ananda, wise men among the nobles, the Brahmans, and the 

* Already one of the texts belonging to the sacred canon points to 
festivals, which are kept at the " Tree of Knowledge." " At the great 
Tree of Knowledge of the Buddha Padumuttara there was a festival 
celebrated. Then I took vessels of many kinds and offered sweet- 
smelling water. When the Tree of Knowledge was to be bathed, 
a great rainfall began," and so on. '* At the supremely holy foot of the 
Knowledge-tree of the Buddha Padumuttara, I planted cheerfully, with 
cheerful heart a banner." — Apaddna, foL ghi', ghi, of the Phayre MS. 

t "MahS,p." p. 61, seq. Cf. "Milinda Paiiha," p. 177, seq. It is 
noteworthy, that, as at this place the care for Buddha's remains is not 
represented as belonging to the disciples, so the Yinaya texts are nearly 
altogether silent as to the last honours of deceased monks. To arrange 
for their cremation was perhaps committed to the laity. — Videe.g, JELardy^ 
Manual, second edn. p. 226 ; cf. however, Bhikkhunivibhanga Pdcittjfa, 
52. 



BEGINNING OF VENERATION FOB SACRED PLACES. 377 

Citizens, who believe in the Perfect One; they will da the 
honours to the body of the Perfect One/' So then after Buddha's 
death his relics are divided out to a number of princes and 
nobles, each of whom '^builds a stupa (monument for relics) 
and institutes a festival'' — ^festivals at which offerings of 
flowers, ablutions and illuminations on a grand scale usually 
play the chief part. The Order of monks as such has nothing 
to do with this pompous show of veneration ; the old rules of 
the Order have not a word to say about it. 

The Oedee op Nuns. 

We have already undertaken in a previous passage (p. 164, 
seq.) to show the position of women in Buddha's teaching. 
We saw with what decided antipathy Buddha's disciples stood 
aloof from the female sex, and how admission to the Order 
was conceded to women only with reluctance and under con- 
ditions which involved their absolute subjection to the monks. 
The social law of the Indians also kept woman all her life long 
in complete dependence. ^' In childhood," says an oft-quoted 
sentence in the Institutes of Manu, '' let her be subjected to 
the will of her father; in adult life to the will of the man who 
has led her home ; to her son's will, when her husband has 
died ; a woman is not permitted to enjoy independence." The 
rules which Buddhist Church-law lays down for the spiritual 
life of nuns might pass for an amplification of this position of 
Manu; as the wife is placed under the guardianship of her 
husband, the mother under the guardianship of her sons, so 
the Order of nuns* is placed under the guardianship of the 
Order of monks. 

* The nuns constitute by themselves an Order of their own (Bhikkhuni- 
«angha), which is co-ordinate with, or rather subordinate to, the Order of 



378 THE ORDER OF NUNS. 

To a certain extent the. fundamental law for the Order of 
the nuns is contained in the '^ eight high ordinances^'' which 
Buddha is said to have enjoined on the first nuns at their 
ordination.* 

''A nun/' so run these propositions, ''if she have been 
ordained even a hundred years ago, must bow most reveren- 
tially before every monk, even though he be ordained only on 
this day, rise in his presence, raise her clasped hands, duly 
honour him. This rule shall she observe, esteem sacred, keep, 
respect, and through her whole life not transgress." 

''A nun is not permitted to pass the rainy season in any 

district in which monks are not residing. This rule also shaU 
she observe, esteem sacred, &c. 

'' The nuns are to go once in the half -month to the monks 
for two things : they are to ask for the confessional ceremony,*!: 
and to apply to the monks for the preaching (of the sacred 
word). This rule also, &c. 

''At the end of the rainy season the nuns are to give tiie 

the monks (Bhikkhusangha). The two Orders are together denominated 
** the two-sided Order" (ubhatosangha). The two-sided Order represents, 
however, no particular unifying organism : the term is only a collective 
expression, which amounts merely to " the Order of monks and the 
Order of nuns." The two-sided Order nowhere appears acting on a 
common platform. If a layman gives garments to the two-sided Order, 
all members, monks and nuns, do not obtain equal shares, but one-half 
belongs to the Order of monks, the other half to the Order of nuns. 
** Even if there be many monks there and only one nun, she obtains th& 
half." — Mahdvagga, viii, 32. 

* « Cullavagga," x, 1, 4. 

t The nuns have to observe the half-monthly confessional ceremony, 
with an extended Hturgy of confession corresponding to the special 
circumstances of the Order of the nuns. It is incumbent on the monk& 
to impart instruction to them regarding this ceremony, as well as 
regarding the atonement of any transgressions committed. — Cullo' 
vagga, x, 6. 



THE mQHT RULES, 379* 

threefold invitation to both sides of the Order :* (to accuse 
them of the crime) if anyone has seen, or has heard of any- 
thing, or has any suspicion against them. This rule also, &c. 

''A nun who has been guilty of a grave offence must submit 
herself to a half-monthly discipline of penance before both sides 
of the Order. This rule also, &c. 

'^ Ordination is to be applied for from both sides of the 
Order only when the postulante has lived for a probationary 
period of two years in the six rules.f This rule also, <&c. 

'' Under no circumstances is a nun to revile or scold a monk* 
This rule also, &c. 

*' From this day forward is the path of speech against the 
monks closed to the nuns. Yet is not the path of speech 
against the nuns closed to the monks. J This rule also,^^ &c. 

The eight "high ordinances^' show clearly enough the 
subordination in which the Order of nuns is kept to the 
monks. None of the more important transactions required 
by the rules of the Order could be completed by the nuns, 
which did not require to be submitted for confirmation by the 
chapter of the monks. If a maiden or a woman, who desires 
to obtain the initiations, has kept the vow of the '^ six rules *'§ 

* When the nuns have finished the celebration of the invitation among 
themselves (vide supra, p. 364), they send a messenger to the monks on the 
following day, who conveys to them in the name of the nuns the invita- 
tion, to state to the nuns any offence of theirs, seen, heard, or suspected. 
A corresponding invitation of the monks to the niuis does not follow (loc» 
cit. X, 19). 

+ Vide in&a, n. §. 

X The meaning of this expression cannot be that the nun is not allowed 
to speak to the monk at all. It is probably meant that the nun is not 
allowed to charge a monk with an offence, to hold him to penance therefor, 
eventually to veto his participation in the ceremonies of the confession and 
invitation (cf. " CuU." x, 20). 

§ She has to promise expressly : " I undertake, as an inviolable vow, to 



380 THE ORDER OF NUNS. 

tlirougli a probationary period of two years^ and has obtained 
ordination from the Order of nuns^ she is still regarded as 
only ^' ordained on one side/' and not fully accredited^ as long 
as she has not appeared before the chapter of monks and in its 
presence gone through the whole ceremony of ordination anew. 
In the same way the confessional observances and invitation 
ceremonies of the nuns' Order^ the atonement for transgressions, 
and the settlement of differences of all kinds, are subject to 
control and partly to confirmation by the monks' Order. Every 
half-month the nuns betake themselves to the monk, who has 
been named to them by a resolution of the brotherhood, to 
receive his spiritual instruction and admonition. In the 
presence of another monk, that monk sits waiting the nuns, 
and when they have made their appearance, bowed themselves 
to the ground, and sat down before him, he speaks to them of 
the eight high ordinances, and expounds to them, either by 
way of sermon or by question and answer, what he deems 
profitable of the teaching and maxims of Buddha.* 

That, as for the rest, strict separation prevailed between 
monks and nuns, is self-apparent. Even the monk, who had 
to preach to the nuns, was not allowed to set foot in the 
nunnery, except when one of the sisters lay ill and required 
his consolation. To make a journey with a nun, to go aboard 

abstain from killing any living creature during two years " — in the same 
way she then vows not to steal, to commit no unchastity, not to lie, to 
drink no intoxicating beverages, and not to eat at the forbidden hours 
(i.e., between noon and the break of dawn next day). 

* That these discourses do not represent the particular scholastic 
traditions of the sacred texts within the Order of nuns and that the latter 
was formed chiefly through nun-teachers, follows from the circumstances of 
the case, and is confirmed, e.g., by the statements in 18th cap. of the 
Dipavamsa. " Cullavagga," x, 8, when properly imderstood is not con- 
tradictory of this. 



RELATION OF ORDER OF SUSS TO ORDER OF MONKS. 381 

the same boat mth her, to Bit with her alono and withoui 
■witness, ■was strictly forbidden to the monks. The daily life, 

the religious exercises of the nuna were not essentially different J 
from those of the monks, except that solitude, in which the 1 
latter found so rich a source of spiritual joys, if not absolutely 
forbidden to the nuns, was at least restricted and was neces- 
sarily so : to live in forest hermitages was forbidden them ; 
they took np their abode rather within tho walls of the village 
or town, in huts or nunneries, by twos or in greater numbers, 
for a sister was not allowed to live alone. From such places 
they made their begging excursions and set out also on those 
greater pilgrimages which were deemed for them as well as for 
the monks a necessary element of ascetic life. In number 
they were apparently far behind the monks,* and therefore it 
is to be doubted also, whether at any time thero was inherent 
in tho spiritual sisterhood a degree of iufluenco wliich could 
be felt, bearing on the Buddhist community as a whole. The 
thoughts and forms of life of Buddhism had been thought out 
and moulded solely by men and for inen. 

The Spiritual Oedkr and the Lay Wojan. 

Buddha's Church is a Church of monks and nuns, "Tery 
straitened," it is said, " is life in the home, a state of impurity ; 
freedom is in leaving the home.'* He'who cannot or will not 
gain this freedom, is not a member of the]Church. But tho 

* An illustration of thia is giyen, for example, in the slaleiueuts of tho 
" DipavaiiiBa " (7, i-) rDgarding the number of tho monks and nuns, who 
have assisted at a great festival instituted by Asoka. Though the numhera 
themselvea are inordinately esaggerated, jet they throw a certain light 
on the rehiti'jn of the two sides. The chroniele'apcaks of 800 millions of 
monks and of only 90,000 nuns. 



^82 THE SPIRITUAL ORDER AND THE LAY WORLD, 

nature of the case was such, and the external existence of the 
the Church even demanded^ that regular relations should be 
maintained between it and the worldly circles, which were 
favourably disposed to the interests of the Order. Without a 
laity, which professed a faith in Buddha and Buddha's teaching, 
-and evinced this faith in pious offices, above all in works of 
helpful beneficence, an order of mendicants could not be 
thought of, and the religious movement of Buddhism would 
have been shut out from contact with the broad surface of 
popular life. Tradition, therefore, as we have pointed out, 
represents, assuredly with propriety, not merely monks and 
nuns, but also '^ male votaries '^ (up&saka) and '^ female 
votaries '^ (up&sikft) as gathering round Buddha from the very 
beginning, persons who while remaining in the worldly state, 
'^ take their refuge '' in Buddha, in the Doctrine, and in the 
Order, and show by word and deed their adherence to this 
holy triad.* 

But while there was framed from the beginning for the 
monastic Church an organization, clothed with strict forms of 
spiritual procedure, there was no attempt made at creations 
of a similar kind for the quasi-Church of lay-brothers and 
lay-sisters. Certain customs of spiritual life and practical 
beneficence must obviously have arisen even here; definite 
institutions have not followed. There was not so much as any 
sharply drawn line between the laity, who were to be regarded 
as adherents of the Order of Buddha, and those who stood 
aloof therefrom; entry into the circle of 'Notaries'' was 
dependent on no qualification and followed regularly upon a 
form fixed by custom, but not determind by rule,t namely upon 

* Vide supra, p. 161, scq. 

t Any one who is conversant with the method of description prevail- 
ing in the Vinaya Texts, will admit the conclusion, that, if the form for 



ilALB AND VEISALE VOTARIES. 383 

the persou taking the step deolaring in the presence of a 
monkj either on his own behalf alone, or jointly with wife, 
children, and servants, that he takes his refage in Bnddha, 
tho Doctrine, and the Order of Disciples. Then there was also, 
it is true, inculcated on the lay- disciples on the part of the 
Order, the observance of certain duties of temperance and rec- 
titnde,* but neither was tho profession of a formal vow by them 
insisted npon, nor did the Church, keep watch in any way 
Tvhatever over the actual falfilment o£ these duties. A formal 
excommunication of unbelieving, unworthy, or scandalously- 
living lay-brothers there was not, and, as a result of circum- 
stances, there could not be. The only procedure prescribed in 
the regulations of the Church against laity, who had given 
cause of complaint, shows clearly how little the ideas of 
admission and espulsion had been applied to this relation : 
namely, the Order might resolve "to withdraw tho alnisbowl " 
from such a layman (i.e., take no gifts from him) " and refuse 

tbe admission of an Ijpasaka had been looked upon as one determined by 
rale, Bomo aarrativo of tlio introduction of tliis form by aa injunction of 
Buddha must also osiat. In truth be is an IFpasaka, who allows liimself 
to be so bj his acta. It eannot tborefore catiae aatonialunent, if 
oecaaionally people, wbo sliow tonour to monks and entertain them, are 
addressed by tbem as Up&aakaa, although tbey do not make a declaratioii 
of their taking refuge uatil afterwards (" Ubp. Atth.," p. 81). Cf. alio 
Bupra, note p. 162. 

* Certain busiaess pursuits were regarded as unallowable for a lay- 
disciple, for instance, dealing in arma, in intoxicating liquors, iu poison 
{" Anguttara Kikiya," vol. ii. fol. caiu.).— As a counterpart to the confes- 
sional celebration ohserred by the monk on tlie first day, there is also 
enjoined on the laily the obserrance of on " eightfold abstinence;" the 
refraining from killing living creatures, from the appropriation of 
another's property, from lying, from the enjoyment of intoxicating liquors, 
from nnchastity, from eating after midday, from perfumes and garlaads ; 
and tho sleeping on low, hard couches or on the ground {idem, vol, iii, 
fol. gtiau'). 



384: THE SPIRITUAL ORDER AND THE LAY WORLD. 

their company to him at table *'*) ; if after this he reformed 
and conciliated the Order, then by a new resolution ''the 
almsbowl would be again presented to him, and the company (of 
the Order) at table be granted to him/' It is evident, that 
what is here dealt with, is not the deprivation or the re-con- 
ferring of a legal qualification of a kind such as we are in these 
days accustomed to associate with membership of a Church 
community, but merely the interruption or revival of a purely 
factitious relation of daily intercourse, the giving and receiving 
of material gifts and spiritual instruction. 

It is entirely in keeping with the manner and method in 
which the position of the lay believers has been treated, that 
regular spiritual gatherings were not instituted for them, and 
much less were they admitted to be present at the ceremonious 
proceedings of' the Order, or even to a share of any kind 
whatsoever in the administration of the business affairs of the 
Order. The daily begging excursion of the monks maintained 
the usual contact between them and the believing laity, and 
gave a natural opening for attentions of a pastoral kind. The 
laity also on their part came to the parks of the community 
near the gates of the town with gifts of every kind, with food 
and medicine, with garlands and perfumes; there they paid 
their respects to the monks, and listened to the exposition of 
the sacred discourses and sayings. Or they erected buildings 

* This separation was not desired in the case of a scandalous mode of 
living — of this the Order as such took no notice — ^but only as a punish* 
ment for an aflront or injury done to the Order. There are eight cases 
noted, in which this resolution was to be passed against a layman : *' Ho 
endeavours to prevent the monks obtaining gifts ; he endeavours to cause 
the monks to suffer injury ; he endeavours to cause the monks not to 
obtain lodgings ; he abuses or scolds the monks ; he causes dissensions 
among the monks ; he speaks evil of Buddha ; he speaks eyil of the 
Doctrine ; he speaks evil of the Order." — Cullavagga, v, 20i 3. 



RULES WHICH REFER TO THE LAY BELIEVERS. 3S5 

for the uses of the Order, and invited the monks to the dedi- 
catory and opening celebrations. '' May it please the venerable 
ones to come to me,'' the message ran somewhat thus, which 
they sent to the Order, '^ I wish to present a gift and to hear 
the preaching of the Doctrine and to see the monks/' Such 
invitations the Order is to receive, and even during the rainy 
season, when otherwise it is forbidden the monks to travel, 
they are allowed in a case of this kind to be absent from their 
place of residence for a period of seven days. Or the believers 
of a township requested the monks to pass the rainy season in 
their neighbourhood; then they provided lodgings for their 
guests, and gave them daily food when they made their 
begging excursions ; and before the monks proceeded on their 
wanderings on the expiration of the rainy season, the lay 
believers were in the habit of giving them a farewell meal, 
with which was connected a distribution of clothing, or of stuff 
for clothing, to the parting spiritual pilgrims. Not unfrequently, 
too, a circle of laymen clubbed together to establish among 
themselves a ^^ roster of dinners" for the Order, each taking 
his turn, and in dear times, when the entertaining of all the 
brethren would have exceeded the abiUty of one layman, 
there were instituted ^' dinners by arrangement," '^ dinners by 
invitation," '^ dinners on subscriptions," '^ fortnightly dinners." 
They promised the brethren to furnish, be it constantly or only 
for a limited period, the medicines of which they might be in 
need, or benefactresses of the Order went through the gardens 
of the monasteries and asked from house to house : ^' Who is 
sick among you, reverend sirs ? To whom are we to bring 
anything, and what ? " That the monks then, on their part, 
were not sparing in promising to the givers every heavenly 
reward, was a matter of course. '^To give houses to the 

25 



386 THE SPIRITUAL ORDER AND THE LAY WORLD. 

Order," it is said,* '^ a place of I'efuge and joy, so that we may 
there exercise concentration and holy intuition, has been com- 
manded by Buddha as the most noble gift. Therefore let a 
wise man, who understands what is best for himself, build 
beautiful houses, and receive into them knowers of the 
Doctrine. He may give food and drink, clothes and lodging 
to such, the upright with cheerful heart. These preach to 
him the Doctrine which drives away all suflfering ; if he appre- 
hends the Doctrine here below, he goes sinless into Nirvina.*' 
In another place it is said :t '^ Well is it for a man always to 
dispense boiled-rice if he have a desire for joy, whether he seek 
heavenly joy or long for earthly happiness.'' That occasionally 
the givers, for whom the drafts on a heavenly reward-fund in 
return for earthly benefaction had so much attraction, must 
have allowed themselves to be laid very wantonly under con- 
tribution by pretentious comrades among the begging stewards 
of heavenly treasures, is only natural. Certainly those narratives 
are drawn from life, as they are not unfrequently told of such 
occurrences in the Vinaya : of the man who had incautiously 
offered to give to the venerable XJpananda whatever he required, 
xind from whom he immediately demanded the clothes he was 
wearing, or of the pious potter, of whom the monks demanded 
almsbowls in such numbers that his busioess was thereby 
ruined. A long series of statements in the confessional 
liturgy was directed against this unauthorized exaction of 
pious charity, and confined within narrow limits the little, 
which monks receive, and the still less, for which they were 
allowed to ask. Apparently the criticism was by no means 
regarded with indifference, which might be practised in lay 

* " Cullavagga," vi, 1, 5. 
t " MaLavagga," vi, 24, 6. 



BENEFICES CE. 



387 



circles, and wliicli the rival religious orders certainly did not 
neglect to maintain vigilantly and keenly. Monks wbo exer- 

1 in any way whatever an evil influence upon the laity, or 
(laused them mortification, were most severely discountenanced, 
end in every way the laity were regarded as an ally on whose 
friendship they knew how to put a proper value. 

As an ally, but at the same time as nothing more. The 
Feeling of having a share as a citizen in the kingdom of 
Saddha's children, was denied to the laity, much more so even 
than was such a feeling denied in the old Brahmanical sacri- 
ficial-faith to the non-Brahman who, albeit only through the 
medium of tho priest, could draw near to tho god equally with 
the priest himself. The Buddhist believer, who did not feel in 
fciraself the power to renounce the world, conld console himself 
with coming ages ; he could hope for this, that it might then 
36 vonehsafed to him, as a disciple of Metteyya, or of one of 
ihe countless Buddhas, who shall come after him, to don the 
jarb of a monk and to taste the bliss of deliverance. 

For to but a few chosen ones, thus the Doctrine says, was it 
jiven, already in this age to attain the goal as disciples of tha 
Bon of the Sakya house, and short term was allotted to the 
existence of tho Church on earth. When in the cloister- 
gardens at Eajagaha and Sflvatthi the discourses of Buddha 
were recited among tho assembled brethren, they bethought 
themselves also of the prophecy : " Not a long time, Anandii, 
ill holy living remain preserved ; five hundred years, Ananda, 
will the Doctrine of the truth abide." Who then foresaw, that 
fter five hundred years the Church of the Buddhists would 
overspread India, and that its missionaries far beyond India, 
traversing the ocean, crossing the snowy ranges of the Hima- 
laya, wandering through the deserts of Central Asia, would 

r the faith of Buddha to nations, whose name even was 



FIRST EXCURSUS. 

On the relative Geographical Location op 
Vedic and Buddhist Culture. 

Those of the Indian peoples, among whom Buddhism has its 
home,* especially the people of Magadha, dwell far to the east of 
the territories, to which the poetry of the Bigveda, introduces us. 
Were they then already residing in the east, or were they at least 
in the act of penetrating to the east, when the hymns of the Yeda 
were being sung in the west, in the Panj^b and on the Sarasvati ? 
Or were they then within the circle of the Yedic world, and have 
they not moved eastward until a later period ? The question may 
also be expressed thus : If in the epic-Buddhist age there was an 
Aryan culture in India, as partakers in which we find the Kurus 
and Pancalas, the people of Magadha and Kosala and so on, did all 
these peoples at one time participate in the ancient Yedic culture, 
or did the Yedic culture in the Yedic age within the Indian Aryan - 
dom cover a narrower field, which, for example, included the Kurus 
and Pancalas, and on the other hand did not comprise the people of 
Yideha and Magadha ? 

We have (p. 9) declared our adherence to the latter of these 
two views, and we here intend to more accurately define and support 
our view, according to which the culture of the Yedas was indi- 
genous to but one portion of the Aryan peoples of Hindostan, and 
from them reached the other afterwards only at second hand. 

* What the approximate geographical extent of the most ancient Buddhism 
was, is stated inter alia in the ** Mah&parinibb&na Sutta," p. 55. The chie 
towns, in which many and respected nobles, Brahmans, and Yaipyas, who 
confess adherence to the faith of Buddha, dwell, are there named: Camp&, 
B&jagaha, S&vatthi, S&keta, Eosambi, B&r&7msi. 



392 RELATIVE LOCATION OF VEDIC AND BUDDEI8T CULTUBE. 

Even, a priori, considering the wide spread of the Aryan territory 
and Aryan peoples in India, it mnst be considered probable, that 
already in the Yedic ago a community of culture had no longer 
continued to prevail throughout this vast tract. The analogies 
of kindred nations which force themselves on our attention 
indicate this. As, though we do not shut our eyes to the recip- 
rocal influences, we are entitled to say that the Dorians of the 
Peloponnesus created for themselves a culture apart from the 
^olians or lonians, and that to a late period XJmbrians, Latins, 
and Oscans, pursued their own path of religious, political, and 
literary development, so the historical treatment of India will in a 
similar way have to separate between western stocks with their 
Yedic culture, which went ahead in spiritual development, and the 
eastern peoples, which developed themselves more slowly, between 
Kurus and Panc^as on one side and the peoples of Kosala, Yideha, 
and Magadba on the other. It will have to make this distinction 
here, even though it is true that the races of India by on means in 
themselves, and still less for us, presented so sharply imprinted, 
distinguishing individualities, as did the Grecian stocks ; we cannot 
expect, it is self -apparent, to realize for ourselves the national life 
of the Kurupancalas on the one hand and of the Yideha or Kosala 
peoples on the other hand, in the same way that we know Dorians 
and Athenians as clearly different types. 

It is necessary for us in our inquiry, at first to leave the 5tk- 
Sa772hitd out of sight, and first to ask the question, what stocks 
have had a share in the spiritual movements, which are indicated 
by the Brahmar^a texts and kindred literature. On the basis of 
the results hereby gained we shall then attempt to determine how 
the group of peoples appearing in the RikSamhiiA are related to 
the great Indian cultured peoples of later times. 

The ethnological table in the ** Aitareya Brahmai?a " (8, 14) shows 
how the Indian stocks group themselves from the standpoint of 
this text, where the incisions are, which separate the differently 
constituted divisions. In the middle " asy&m* dhruvdydm madh- 

* In treating of the other territories, instead of asy&m the word etasyAm is 
used : asy&m contains a significant hint that the compiler of the text belongs to 
this very territory. Vide Weber, " Ind. Lit. Gesch.,"« p. 49. 



ETHNOLOGICAL TABLES OF THE -'AIT. BB." ^iVD OF MANU. 393 

jBinijAm ^Tatishlji&jhm di^i " lie the realms of the KunipaiicMas 
together with Vaf as* and U^inaraB. To the south of this Land of 
the Middle there dwell the Satvats, eastward the Pr^c^aa (we shall 
neceasai'ily thinfe chiefly of the Kiif i, Kosalft,t Videha, and Mpigadha 
peoples), westward the Nicyas, Apaoyaa. In the north the Middle 
Land is bounded by the Himalaya, for as peoples north oE the 
Middle those ave named, who dwell pai-eji.a Himavantam, the 
Uttarakorus and Uttaramadraa. 

With the Bketch of the distribntion of Indian peoples, which is 
fchns given, now admirably fit in the data, which are supplied by 
3Iana — -probably following older Sutra texts. The land of the 
Brahmarshis, whose cnstoms and rights are taken as a model, whose 

* This is the accepted and. a,B I belicvi', the correct translation of saYBr- 
<0(InarfijiAai. Tlie Vavaa will be identical with the VaHians in the Buddhist 
enumeration of peoples (riil. infra, p. 407, n. 2,), but can harilly have anything 
to do wiOi the Va?aa introduced by the Patersbnrgh Leiticon from the " Mahflb- 
hirata," i, 6664 (if the reading of the Calc. Edition be correct], who are clasBod 
together with the Yavanaa, BarbaraH, Clnas, and other Mleechaa. The Lexicon 
iSnds, apparently correctly, a mention of the Vai;aa also in the " Gop. Bt.," 2, 9 : 
imeahn Kurupaiicileshu Aiigamagadheshu Kft(ikaui;alyeBhu QUvamatsyeabu 
^VOM (lege: savava) ai,'^aceBhQdtcyeshu. Now, from a comparison of "Ait. 
Sr.," 8, 14, and " Gop. Br.," S, 9, the relevancy also of a third passage seema to 
me to be estabUshed, " Kauah. Upan.," iv, 1 : ho 'vaaad U>;ina[eahu aavasan 
MatByeBbu KunipaaciUeBhu Ka('i¥idehBHhy iti. The " savaaan," which here occurs 
between the names of the U^'lnaros and the Matsjas, cannot be diEBssociatcd 
from the " ^vasa," which stands between the same names in the " Gop. Br.," and 
the " savara," which occurs in the " Ait Br." in Conjunction with the name of the 
Ui^na^as. Thus, I think, that in this passage the conjecture " sava(^amatsyeBhu " 
should be preferred to the emendation" Satvan-Matajesha," recommended by the 
Pet.IiBi;. and by Professor Max Miiller (" Upanishada," Introd., p. bmvii). 

t The Koaalii, people are by the Buddhists also counted among the 
PrdcyaB. As the Sakyas belonged to the Koealas, Buddha himself was cor 
sidered a Kosala; but as to the Buddhas Iha rule held good: puratthimes 
janapadesu buddhi bhagavanto uppajjanti (" Cnllav." xii, 2, 3). In the same wa 
it follows that Benares belonged to the eastern land, for the Buddha Eaesapa 
was bom io the kingdom of the king Kiki of BArAHaal (lilahdpadfina Sutta). 
Moreover the Buddhist texts make the king of Eosala rule over Benares also 
J[LohiccaHutla in the " DIgha Kik&ya" : rfijA Pasenedi Kosalo Kfisikosalani aiJhA- 
vaaati) ; in the territory of Kfisi Pasenadi fights Ma battles against Ajdlasutla 
(KoEola Baniyutta). — CL further "Mah^vagga," viii, 2. The distinction ol u 
northern and southern Kosala Jtingdoni (" Bumouf," Intr., p. 22, vol. i) ii ; 
in accordance with the Pili Pilakas. 



394: RELATIVE LOCATION OF VEDIC AND BUDDHIST CULTURE. 

warriors are tbo bravest, is Karukshetra and the territory of the 
Matsyas, the Panc&las and Q&rasenas (2, 19 ; 7, 193). Thns the 
land of the Brahmarshis embraces what is set down in the Aitareya 
as madhyamd di9 and as south;* but what is regarded in the 
Aitareya as west and east, above all the eastern peoples of Ka^i, 
Kosala, Videha, and Magadha, is in Mann excluded from the land of 
the Brahmarshis. 

Thus we have here a distinction between those stocks, who felt 
themselves to be the qualified champions of Aryan culture, and 
those who were Aryans, it is true, but were not regarded as 
equally accredited partakers in this culture. Momenta of many 
kinds may have co-operated to bring about and enhance this 
difference. Association with non- Aryan elements, to which the 
stocks that had migrated to the greatest distances were especially 
exposed, may have been at the same time in play.f But it hardly 
lay in this only, that the Kurus claimed to be something other and 
better than the Magadhas. Bather here appears to be the place 
where the ancient lines of distinction become apparent, which had 
come down from an immemorial past, drawn between the different 
leading groups and leading types of the Indian Aryan stocks, and 
the existence of which we might be entitled to assume almost with 
a jpriori certainty. We must, for the testing of this supposition^. 

* Of the peoples of the inadhyam& dig the Earns and Paiic&las occnr again in 
Manu ; that the small stocks of the Ya^as and U^inaras are not expressly named, 
is no cause of astonishment. In the south new tribal names have arisen : the 
Qurasenas, who are not named at all in the old texts, are now the chief people of 
the south. As to the connection between the Satvats, Bhojas, T&davas, 9^^- 
senas, see Lassen, " Ind. Alt.," i, 757 ; cf . Weber, " Ind. St.," i, 211. 

t So it is said in the " Baudh&yanadharmaQ&stra," i, 1 (according to MSS. 
Bumell 39 and 40 in the India Office Library) : 

Avantayo 'nga-Magadh&s Sur&shfr&-Dakshin&path&^ 
Up&ynt-Sindhusauvlr& ete sai»ldr7tayona/i. 

luBXtkn E&raskar&n Pundr&n Sauvir&n Yanga-Ealing&n pr&nn'n&niti cadagatv& 
(? sic^ the last word being corrected to codag gaty&, one MS. ; the other reads : 
pr^rmSn iti ca gatv&) pvmastomena yajeta sarYapnsht/{ay& y&. 'th&py ad&* 
haranti: 

padbhy&m sa kurute papam ya/i Ealing&n prapadyate, 
r/shayo nishkn'tim tasya pr&hur vai^v&narani havi/i. 



FROaiNEKCB OF THE KirRVS AKD STOCKS. 



335 



next finbmil the Br&hinana texts and finally the 2Cik-Sanihita to an 
©xBininatioii as to thoir bearing on the peoples of the different 
groapB indicated bj na. 

If, as we hold, in the BrAhmaiia period the home of Biuhmnnio- 
civilizatioii has been with the Knm-Pancillfta and the etocks of the 
west standing in closer nnion with them, wa cannot, nevertheless, 
and we do not, expect to find this disclosed in the exclusive mention. 
of peoples of the wofitern groups in the Briihmayia texts. But the 
cases of their being mentioned, specially of the Kuma and Paiicalas, 
and in a isecond degi'ee of the Bharatas,* surpass at once beyond all 
comparison in frequency tho mentioning of the eastern peoples, and 
then the texts frequently attribute to tho westera peoples unmis- 
takably the weight of an older and higher sacral authority, than to 
the eastern groups, which latter arc plainly named in a hostile or- 
contemptnous tone, or at leaBt appear as peoples who have received 
from the west instruction in the spiritual knowledge, which has its 
liome there. 

A selection of the very amply existing materials bearing on this, 
matter will suffice for tho illustration of what has been said. 

The Karukshetra is the place of sacrifice of the gods (" ^at." ir, 

1, 5, 13 ; xiv, 1, 1, 2). From the Camasa, which the gods ased in 
the sacrifice, was produced the sacred tree Njagrodha; the iirst- 
bom of the Nyagrodha trees grow on the Kurukshetra (" Ait." 
7, 30), In the tale of the Puriiravas and Urvafis the Knrukshetra 
plays a part (" ^at." xi, 5, 1, 4; "Ind. Studien," i, 197). The 
offerings which must be performed at the Saraavati, Drishadvatt 
and Tamnna, are known (v. " ^Aiikb. ^r." 13, S'J ; " Kity." 24, G ; 
" Paiicav. Br." 25, 10 seq). In the north, among the Kurupaficfllas, 
is the countiy, where tho VSc has her peculiar home j tho Vic, as 
she there is, is truly (nidanena) to be called a Vac (" Qat." iii, 

2, 3, 15). t Some prefer the Paiicavattam to the Caturavattam, 
but the Caturavattam follows the custom of tho Kornpancalas, 
therefore let it bo given the preference (" ^at." i, ?, 2, 8). A 
saying of the E! urn paiicalas with reference to the kings of the 

* Concerning these and tlieir relalion to the Eunis, see (arliier on. 
t Cf. the g^rikfa. Br&hni., ■' lad. Stud.," ii, p. 309. 



89G RELATIVE LOCATION OF VEDIC AND BUDDHIST CULTURE. 

KnrapancAlas, who have performed the BAjasdya-sacrifice, v. " ^at." 
V, 6, 2, 5. A form of the V&japeya-ofPering, which bears the name 
Kuru-vajapeja, is explained at "^&nkh. ^r." xv, 3, 15. To a 
disaster which the Kurus sustained by a shower of stones, reference 
is made in ** Chdnd. Up." i, 10, 1. An old verse, in which it is 
said, " The mare saves the Kurus," is quoted at id. iv, 17, 9» 
'* The Kuras shall be obliged to fly from Kurukshetra," a Brahman 
threatens and his threat is fulfilled ; " ^4nkh. 9r." xv, 15, 10." — Cf. 
also " Taitt. Br." i, 8, 4, 1, 2. 

The brilliant part is well known, which Janamejaya, the king of 
the Kurus, plays in a series of the Brahmaiza texts, as well as that 
noble ode in praise of his father, the Kuru king Parikshit, which 
we have preserved in " Av." xx, 127, 7 seq. 

As Parikshit and Janamejaya among kings, so AruTii among 
those versed in sacrifice stands on a high, perhaps on the highest 
platform.* To Aruni is attributed the formula with which the 
morning and evening sacrifice is celebrated : agnir jyotir agni^ 
sv^ha ; suryo jyotir jyoti/i surya/i sv^h^ (" ^at." ii, 3, 1, 34), and in 
others also of the Yajus formulae are found traces of Aruwi's hand 
(" gat." iii, 3, 4, 19, vgl. " Taitt. Ar." i, 12, 4). But Aruni is 
mentioned as a Kaurupancala brahman (" ^at." xi, 4, 1, 2) ; the 



* When the time shall have come for the mquiries, which will have to be made 
to create order out of the chaotic mass of names of teachers and other celebrities 
of the BrdrhmaTia period, it may turn out that the most important centre for the 
formation and diffusion of the Brahmaiia doctrine will have to be looked for in 
AruTti and in the circles which syrrounded him. The most divergent lines of 
tradition meet in the person of Uddilaka Aruni. He is named as the teacher of 
yajnavalkya (" ^at. Br." xiv, 9, 3, 15; 9, 4, 33 ; cf. of the other books of this 
text y. 5, 5, 14). But also in the texts belonging to the iZigveda he plays a 
prominent part. As the Vaw^a at the end of the *' (^o.U Br." makes the teacher, 
who in this text enjoys leading authority, namely, Y&jnavalkya, a pupil of 
AtuuVb, so the Eaushltaki Araiiyaka (XV) represents Eaushltaki and through 
him also his pupil ^ankh&yana derive his wisdom from Aruni ("Guw&khy&c 
Ghd^nkhdyanM asm4bhir adhitam, Gvm&khy&h (^aukhdyand/t EahoUt Elaushl- 
take/t, Eahola/i Eaushitakir Udd^lak&d Arune/i," etc.). And also the teacher, 
ivhose name we find at the head of another branch of iZtgveda school tradition, 
Madhuka Paiiigya (cf. regarding him *' Eaush. Br&hm." xvi, 9 ; " ^at* Br." xl, 7, 
5, 8), is through the medium of Y&jnavalkya brought into connection with Aruid 
^" 9at. Br." xiv, 9, 3, 16). Cf. also *• Ch&nd. Up." iii, p. 178 ed. Boer. 



THE ** CATAPATHA BRAUMAliJA *' AND THE VIDEHAS, 397 

MaMbharata (i, 682, ed. Calc.) defines him more closely as a Pan- 
calya, with which the fact is in keeping, that we find his son 
^vetaketu* appear in an assembly of the Pancalas (" (Jat." xiv, 9, 
1, 1 ; "Chand. Up." v, 3, 1), and that a man from Kau9ambi is 
mentioned as Arum's pupil (" (Jat." xii, 2, 2, 13). 

Certain peculiarities of recitation are laid claim to as belonging 
to the Pancalas, others to the Pracyas (" Qahkh. 9r." xii, 13, 6 ; " jRik- 
Prati9. Sutra '* 137 and 186) ; we shall perhaps be permitted to 
conclude, that on the whole the method of Vedic recitation has 
arisen among the Kurus. 

The passages bearing on the Bharatas, standing to all appearance 
in closest union with the Kurus, will be set forth and explained 
farther on. Here we merely mention the saying in " Taitt. Ar." ii, 20 : 
namo Gangayamunayor madhye ye vasanti . , . namo Gangaya- 
munayor munibhyag ca. 

To the evidence here collectedf of the prominent importance of 
the Kurupancalas in the Vedic world — evidence, a part of which 
is drawn from the " (Jatapatha Brahmana " — will be opposed the 
important part, which the people of Yideha, living far in the east, 
and their king Janaka play in this very text. The attitude of the 
*' ^atapatha Brahmana " to the eastern parts of Hindostan is so 
instructive on the matters which now engage our attention, that we 
shall go into greater detail on this point. 

In the last books of the " (Jatapatha Brahmawa," the debates, which 
are carried on between the Brahmans at the Court of the Videha 
king Janaka, bear leading prominence. The hero of these contests, 
and at the same time the teacher, whose authority on spiritual ques- 
tions is regarded as decisive, J is Yajnavalkya. Some passages of the 
Br^hmawa make it, if not absolutely certain, at any rate highly 
probable, that he belonged by descent, not to the Kurupancalas but 

* The same, who in a noteworthy passage of the Apastamba (i, 2, 5, 6) is 
cited as an example of the appearance of ^I'utarshayas still in later ages. 

t Compare with these also the very rich collections of Weber, ** Ind. St." i, 
189 seq. ; the relevant passages from the " Kdt/iaka " are quoted at iii, 469, 471. 

J For brevity's sake we may here be permitted to omit notice of Books 
vi-x, xiii, the bearing of which is avowedly peculiar (Weber, " Ind. Stud." xiii, 
2G5-269 ; Delbriick, " Die Altindische Wortfolge," p. 45). 



398 RELATIVE LOCATION OF VEDIC AND BUDDHIST CULTURE. 

— we may venture to add conjectnrally — ^to the Videbas.* Thus 

we have here a proof, from which it is clear that Brahman- Vedic 

cnlture was held in honour at a court far east from the land of the 

Kurupanc&las, and also that, in all pi*obabilitj, the most respected 

teacher of this court was himself a native of that eastern kingdom. 

This fact cannot be thrown into relief by itself alone, without 

•setting it in its true light by means of other facts drawn from that 

same Br&hmana. The "(Jatapatha Br." shows itself in the clearest 

way, that Brahmanic culture among the Videhas is only an offshoot 

from the Kurupanc&las. Y^jnavalkya himself is a pupil of Aruwi 

(note p. 396), who, as we saw, was a Pancala. The groups of 

Brahmans, who flock to Janaka, are — except Ysgnavalkya — Kuru- 

3)ancalanam brahmana^ (xiv, 6, 1, 1, etc.) ; the king of the east, 

who has a leaning to the culture of the west, collects the celebrities 

of the west at his court — much as the intellects of Athens gathered 

at the court of Macedonian princes. How fully throughout the 

whole text, which actually appears to have been compiled in the 

east, the authority of the west, of the Kurupancalas, is felt and 

acknowledged, the passages collected above amply show.f And 

most clearly in the well-known nan'ation of the " (Jatapatha Br." i, 

4, 1, 10 seq.J has the memory been preserved, that there was a 

time, when the sacrificial system, as it flourished on the Sarasvati, 

was still a stranger to the land of the Yidehas§ : Videgha Mathava, 

* XIV, 6, 1, 1-3 and especiaUy 6, 9, 20. 

t Holding as we do with Weber that the *' ^B.t. Br." was compiled in the east, it 
is very readily explained how this text not only knows those peoples, kings and 
teachers, as do the other texts, but in addition also knows Y&jnavalkya and 
Janaka, of whom the other texts are almost wholly ignorant (Weber, •* Lit. Gesch."* 
p. 146, note 2). The other texts originated at the very centre, the " ^at. Br." at 
the periphery of Vedic culture ; in the provinces people know the great folks of 
the capital, but not vice versA, 

I Cf. Weber, " Ind. Stud." i, 170 seq. 

§ What river that Sfi,danlrd here, niimed as a boundary, is, cannot, as far as I 
see, be determined with certainty. Weber (loc, cit. 172, 181) identifies -it with 
the Ga7idaki, which in later times formed the boundary between the territories 
of Eosala and Videha. Against this the fact seems to speak, that the 
Mah^bhS,rata on one occasion makes its heroes cross " Gandakiu ca Mahd^onam 
Sad&nir&n tathaiva ca " (ii, 794 ed. Calc. ; also vi, 325, 332 the two rivers stand 
beside each other in a long list) ; this passage is, of course, not decisive, for the 



LKOENU OF AOyi VAigvA^lARA-THE ZIAGADIUS. 309 

the national hero of tbo Videhas, goes eastward across the Sadantra 
and there establishes the rule of the Videhas. But Agni 
VaifTanara, who comes fi'om the Sarasvatl, does not accompany 
him across ; he cannot burn beyond the Sad/lnti-a. Therefore in 
earlier af^s no Bi'ahmans went across the Sadaniril to the east, for 
it was bad land, whereof Agni Vaifvanara had not tasted. " Now, 
however, eastward of that dwell many Brahmans ; . . . now ia it 
indeed good land, for now have Brahmans made it enjojabia 
through offerings." The difference between the ancient Vedic land ' 
of culture in the west and the east, where there was Aryan land, 
bnt not yet for a long time a home of Vaif vSnara, can scarcely 
be more significantly expressed. Certainly the limits between the 
two tracts here appear to have been already pushed forward a stage 
farther toward the east ; the Kosalas have entered earlier than the ' 
Videhas into the community of Vedo-Brahmanic cnltiire.* 

Still farther off from the old centres of Vedic culture than the 
races already named stand tbeMagadhas. In a well-known passage 
<if the Atharva-Veda (5, 22, 14) the fever is washed away to the 
Gandharisf and Mujavants, and to the Aiigas and Magadhas ; and \ 

knowledge of the true Sad4n!rft, whicd has been lost to later lexioographeis in 
every instance — tor ths EoratojA cannot possibly be identified with the S. — maj 
have been already wanting to the poela who composed these pasaages of the 
MahflbMjala. 

* It ia quite in accordance with this that among the names of Oie .'itooks not held 
in foil esteetn an thongh being non-Aryan, which are at the sarae time applied as 
Uie designations of mixed castes, Yaideha occurs as well aa Magadha (Manu s, 
II ; cf. Gautama iv, 17), but not Eausalya. We also find the names □! the 
Nicchivia (Liocha™) and the Mallaa (Manu x, 22), the rulers of KuBin4ra and 
Pftvft and the near neighbours of the Sakyas, Probably, then, the laller also 
belonged to the stocks little affected by Brahiuonio influences. 

+ The Gandhlraa in the north-west will have to bo regarded by ua as standing i 
outaide tiie pale oC Vedio culture, in the same way as the Magadha people did in 
the south-east (c(. Both, " zur Literatur," see 42), Of oouraa they are known to the 
Vedio texts. But then- mention in "Ch4ndogyaUpan."vi, 14 does not imply that 
the cotnpilec of that test was specially near to the (Jandhftraa, so that we cannot 
ooDClude with Prof- Max Miiller (p. 105 of his Translation) regarding the high anti- 
quity of the text or the northern origin of its compiler. The passage seems to me 
rather to favour the opposite (at. also Weber, "Ind. 8t."i,2I9nt>te). The matter 
dealt with ia a compariaon ot a man, who is led (4nlya) away by the Gandhfiraa 
tntb closed eyes, and who then inquirEshis way back from village to village. ' 



400 RELATIVE LOCATION OF VEDIC AND BUDDHIST CULTURE, 

a host of othei' passages in the Vedic literature combine to show 
that the Magadhas were looked upon as strangers, and were regarded 
by no means with favour .♦ 

If our inquiry up to this point, which has been based, essentially 
on the Br&hmana Text, has yielded the probability, that, for the 
history of the spread of Vedic culture, a sharp distinction must be 
drawn between Kurus, Pancalas, and the peoples connected with 
them on the one hand, and the Eastern stocks, especially the 
Videhas and Magadhas on the other, now is the time to examine 
this hypothesis by the data which the i^ik-Sa/Tihitd supplies. We 
ask: Can we discern among the stocks, which are mentioned in 
the JBik-Sawhita, a prominence or even an exclusive appearance of 
the circle which groups itself round the Kuru -Pancalas ? We 
believe we shall have to answer this question in the affirmative. 

passage means the more, the farther the Gandharas are made to reside from 
the land where this may have been said. With the Buddhists the oapital of the 
Gandh§,ras, TakkasilS,, figures constantly as the place to which anyone travels, 
when he desires to learn something good, e.g. " Tat. K.tthJ'^ ii| 2 ; 39 etc, and 
already in the Vinaya Pitaka : '* Mah&vagga," viii, 1, 5, seq. 

• Vide the quotations in Professor Weber's "Lit. Gesch.," second edition, 
p. 86, 123 seq. 156. I cannot agree with Weber in tracing the light esteem of 
the Brahmans (or quasi-Brahmans, for they do not apparently pass as pure) of 
Magadha expressed in the passages in point, to the success of Buddhism in that 
country. If the Brahmans of Magadha as such are spoken of in a sneering tone, 
it is, I think, more natural to think of the Ught esteem in which their fatherland 
was held, than of a circumstance — the Buddhist faith — which affected only single 
individuals among them, but affected, instead, Kosala Brahmans, etc., quite as 
much. If this faith and not the origin of the Magadha Brahmans were the real 
point, why then was not, for example, the well-known prescript regarding 
Vratyastoma based on the faith and not on the descent ? Data of any kind 
whatever, which might stand in any connection whatever with Buddhism, I have 
not been able to discover in the whole range of the statements regarding the 
Vrfi,tyas. The r6le which the Magadha people here play, is amply explained by 
the feeling of national antipathy, or of contempt, which was harboured towards 
them. Prof. Weber seems to me to hit the mark, when he, *' Lit. G.,"« p. 305, 
surmises that the land of Magadha was not wholly Brahmanized. But we need 
not suppose that here ** the aborigines always preserved a kind of influence." The 
Aryan immigrants themselves were not wholly Brahmanized, i.e., not wholly 
permeated by the culture of the Kuru-Pafic&las. — We may here also refer to 
" Kaush Ar." 7, 14 : atha ha sm&sya (i.e., of the Hrasva M^wdukeya) putra &ha 
Madhyama/t Pratibodhiputro Magadhav&sJ. Thus, dwelling in the Magadha 
territory is mentioned as something unusual. • 



THE STOCKS MENTIONED IN THE UIK-SAMHITA, 401 

It is admitted that the status of Indian family-stocks, as it is 
given in the jBik-Saw^hitst, corresponds at first sight only partially 
lYith that which is set forth in the Br^hmaria. A series of the 
most important race-names given in the i2ik-Samhit4 have vanished 
wholly, or as good as wholly, in the Brahmaw^a : e.g,, the Purus, 
Tnrva9as, Yadus, TWtsns, and so on. Vice versd, of the names 
of Knms and Panc£ilas, which stand in the front in the Brahmana, 
not one is named, directly at least, in the SamhiiL There arose 
apparently on the one side new names instead of the old (note the 
well-known change of Krivi and Pancala), on the other, in the 
many migrations and straggles in numerous places, the countless 
small stocks of the older days cohered into few greater peoples ;* 
naturally such events might easily necessitate a change in the 
names. Finally the possibility also must not be overlooked, that 
one and another among the stocks, which had participated in the 
culture of the i^'k-Samhit^, withdrew later from the circle, in 
which the Vedic culture has further developed itself, and new 
stocks entered this circle. 

The investigation will now naturally take this course : first those 
stocks of the jBik-Samhita will be enumerated, which reappear 
under the same names in the Br^hma?^. Then will be mentioned 
the unfortunately only few cases, in which the identity of the 
name is indeed wanting, but where from further considerations 
of some kind or other a connection between the one case and the 
other is rendered probable. 

Of instances of the first kind I may cite the following : — 

Kurus, in the jBik-SamhitcL at least indirectly named, Zim- 
mer, "Altind. Leben," p. 130 seq. ; Ludwig, "Mantraliteratur,** 
p. 205. 

Krivis (= Pancalas), s. Zimmer, p. 102 seq. The small importance 
of the Blrivis in ancient times as compared with the later great 
prominence of the PancMas suggests the supposition, that the 
change of names is connected with further changes, some such 

* Compare the analogous ooourrenoes in ancient Qermany, where, for example*, 
the Chamavi, Sigamberi, Ampsiyarii of ancient times combined to form the 
composite race of the Franks. 

26 



402 EELATIVE LOCATION OF VEDIO AND BUDDEI8T CULTURE. 

as a coliesioii of the Ejivis with other elements to form the PancUa 
stock ; we shall return to this matter later on, p. 404 seq. 

Matsyas, Zimmer, p. 127. The passage quoted from Mann (supra, 
p. 393) and nnmerons other evidences establish their connection 
with the great western groups of peoples. 

U9inaras, Zimmer, p. 130. Their belonging to the group of the 
Kurus and Panc&las is clear from the genealogical table of the 
Aitareja. 

Sn'Sijayas, Zimmer, p. 132 ; Ludwig, '* Mantra Lit." p. 153 seq. ; 
Weber, " Ind. Stud," i, 208 ; iii, 472. Their close connection with 
the Kurus has been rightly inferred by Zimmer from " ^at." ii, 4, 4, 5 ; 
cf . also " ^at." xii, 9, 3, 1 seq. 

Eu9amas, Zimmer, p. 129. In the Brdhmana we meet with at 
least one Ku^amli (''Pane. Br." xxv, 13); this one runs round 
Kurukshetra for a bet made with Indra. 

Gedis, Zimmer, p. 129, I here insert this stock, although, as far 
as I know, it does not meet us again in the Br&hmana, but only 
in the great Epic : Panc&149 Cedi-Matsy^ ca ^iirasen4i^, etc. 
(iv. 11). The Cedis are set up as the model of upright living 
(i, 2342 seq.). They lie, judging by their later settlements, of all 
these peoples farthest to the south-east, s. Lassen, F, 688 A. 3 ; 
Cunningham " Archseol. Survey," ix, 64 seq. 

Of the Bharatas we shall treat farther on. 

Already this of itself confessedly scanty list of names indicates 
unmistakably that the Btk-SsmhiH, has its home among those 
groups of peoples, who are found later on gathered round the 
centre of the Kurupancalas. The instances to the contrary are 
unimportant. They are the following : — 

The GandhSris, Zimmer, p. 30. Vide supra, p. 399. 

The Kika^s, Zimmer, p. 31. These, according to the lexico- 
graphers, would have to be taken aa identical with the Magadha 
people. But, on the one hand, they are mentioned in a way which 
appears to point to their distance from, rather than to their nearness 
to, the compiler of the poem, and on the other it is more than 
uncertain that they are to be really identified with the Magadha 
stock. YSfika (Kir. 6, 32) was only able to say of the Elika^ that they 



THE STOCKS MENTIONED m TBE RIK-SAMHITA. 



403 



were non- Aryans. If he was justified in thia, then they were not 
the Magadhaa, if these were Aiyana. Bat if TiLska knew nothing 
really of the Kitaiaa and drew wliat he said of them only from 
the paasnge of the JJtgTOda, it is then difficnlt to believe that the 
lexicographers knew more. 

A connection of the Aflga Anrava, who according to the Anu- 
kramani ig represented to he compiler of Bv. 10, 138, with the 
people of the Angae, we have no reason to snppoae. 

Ikshvakua, Zimmer, p. 133, cf. p. 104 not«. The later ages trace 
back the royal race of Eastern Hindostan to Ikshviikn ; the race also, 
to which Buddha belonged, regarded itself as a race of IkshvAknidse. 
If Ikshviikn stands outside the cii-cle with wliich, according to onr 
inveeiigation, the Bik-Sajuhita otherwise deala, the mention of 
a mighty prince in this way would of itself scarcely be need 
f^ainst us as an instance opposed to our result. Bat the case 
itself is questionable : the " (^atapatha Brflhmana " (xiii, 5, 4, 5) 
knows Purukntsa aa an Ikshvakuid ;* but Pnrukntsa was prince 
of the PQi-us (Zimmer, p. 123), whom no one will seek to identify 
with those eastern peoples (regarding the Purus see onr remarks 
presently) . Are we to suppose that the eastern stocks, when they 
cams into closer contact with the Vedic cxdtnre, haye appropriated 
to their most Tcnerated kingly races ancestors of Vedic nobility, 
and that for that purpose the name of Ikahv&kaidBa, belonging 
correctly to the Purus, has been selected ? 

We now pass on to consider the cases, in which the identity or 
connection of stocks which wo mentioned in the Sajithita, and such 
as are mentioned in the Brahmana, is to be rendered probable, not 
directly by resemblance of name but in some other way. 

The Purus are, as is known, brought in the genealogical system 
of the great epic into the closest connection with the Kunis. In 
the Brflhmaim, there tire imfortimately wanting evidences, but 
internal probability really speaks for our inferring a connection 
between the people, which stands in the age of the £zk-Sa?n.hit& in 



* Probably it serves to confirm tMs Btatcment, that acooiding to tbe " Pancav. 
Br." xiii, 3, 12 Tryanwa IraidMtTa_waB an Ailtahvilha ; but a Trjaruna we know 
(rom iJ'gv. V. 27 to be a descendant of Traaadosyu. 



401 RELATIVE LOCATION OF VEDIC AND BUDDHIST CULTURE. 

• 

the centre of Yedic civilization, and that which occupies the same 
position in the case of the Br^hma?ia.* It also deserves to be 
noted that the Kum^ravaTia, cf. Bv, x, 33, 4, is denominated 
Trasadasjava ; bat Trasadasjn was a prince of the Piims. I 
believe that the PArus were only one among other elements, 
which combined to form the people of the Kums ; another I shall 
attempt to point out as we proceed (p. 408 seq.). 

The Turva9as, standing in closest connection with the Yadus, 
belong of course to the stocks most frequently mentioned in the 
J2ik-Samhit& ; they are sometimes mentioned in a friendly and 
sometimes in an unfriendly tone. From the Br^hmana their name 
has almost completely vanished ;f nevertheless we have one passage 
which gives us a key to the place in which we have to search for 
the ancient Turva^as among the people of the later age. In the 
lists of kings who have offered the A9vamedha, we find the 
Pancala king (Jo?wt Satrasaha (** ^at." xiii, 5, 4, 16), regarding 
whose horse-sacrifice a Gatha is quoted : " When Satrasaha makes 
the A9vamedha offering, the Taurva9as arise, six thousand and six 
and thirty clad in mail (varmi?iam)," The commentary explains : 
Taurva9aA- a^va^ ; the construction (cf. also the following Gatha, 
§ 1?) clearly shows that the Taurva9as are rather the " varmin," i.e., 
the mail-clad escort of noble races, who have to follow the offered 
horse (or the horses offered), so that it be not lost (" (Jat." xiii, 1, 
6, 3 ; 4, 2, 16 ; " Kktj. 9r." xx, 2, 11). 

We expressed above our doubt that the Krivis of ancient time 
f, alone, without admixture of other elements, are to be set down as 
being the same with the PancAla : now we have found bands of the 
Turva9a youth actively engaged in the offering of a Pancala king. 
Thus the conjecture is justified that we are to look to find in the 
people of the Pancalas, of the stock of the Bik Samhit^, the Turva9as 
also as well as the Krivis. The union of the Turva9as, frequently 



* Cf. the remarks of Ludwig, " Mantralit." p. 205. 

t That they are identical with the Yncivants also named in the £r&hmana, 
as Zimmer (p. 124) would have them, J2v. vi, 27, does not justify us to 
assimie. This passage is satisfactorily explained also if the Vricivants are 
treated only as confederates of the Turva^as (cf. Ludwig, " Mantra L.," p. 153). 



THE STOCKS MENTIONED IN THE BIK-SAUHITA 4.05 

with the Tadus, and occasionally with the Matsyas (Bv, vii, 18, 6), 
falls in completely with this conjecture. 

In order to define the position which the Tntsus, whose brilliant 
victories are so highly celebrated in the Vasish^Aa Hymns, occupy 
among the stocks of the Vedic age, we point next to the connection in 
which they stand with the Sn'fijaya (vide supra, p. 402), a connection 
which is undoubtedly to be regarded as an alliance. Both have the 
same enemies : that the .TWtsus stand opposed to the Turva9as in 
battle we know from vii, 18, 6 ; 19, 8, and so on ; of the Srinjayas 
we gather the same from vi, 27, 7. In the hymns of the Bharadv&ja 
book (M.a,nd, vi) an equal friendship for the SWnjayas and the Tn'tsu 
prince DivodAsa appears ; the praises. of the gifts and honours which 
the bard has received from Divodasa, and of those which he has 
received from the Sariijaya (i.e., Daivavata), are united in the same 
poem (vi, 47).* Now we have abeady mentioned the union of the 
Srmjayas and,Kurus appearing in the Brahmana ; as the bard of 
vi, 47 posed as the Purohita of the Tritsu and Snnjaya princes, so 
Devabhaga (^rautarsha (" ^at. Br." ii, 4, 4, 5) united the purohital 
dignity of the Kurus and Snnjayas. Thus we shall be led by 
probabilities to allot to the Tntsus their place within the circle of 
stocks, among which later on the name of the Kurus played the 
most prominent part. 

• Much clearer results are obtained if we accept the important 
and acute supposition of Ludwig,t who declares the TWtsus to be 
identical with the Bharatas. I think that there is, in fact, more 
than one consideration in support of this conjecture. The Tntsus 
axe mentioned under this name exclusively in the seventh MawcZala { 
but it is a priori in the highest degree improbable that the race 
which thus plays so brilliant a part should be wholly unknown to 

* Among the vouchers for the connection of the Tr/tsus and Srifijayas I also 
reckon liv. vii, 19, 3, although of course the weight of this passage is diminished 
by the mention of Trasadasyu and the Piirus being made therein at the same time. 
As Vitahavya and Sud&s there stand beside each other, it appears to me to be clear 
that Vitahavya is to be understood as a proper name of the Sr/iijaya prince, cf. 
" Ath. v.," V, 19, 1 ; " Taitt. Samh." v, 6, 5, 3 ; " Pane. Br." xxv, 16, 3. A Vitahavya 
is also lauded in the Bharadv&ja book, which is, as is well known, friendly to the 
Srifijayas (Ry. vi, 16, 2, 3). Aliter Zimmer, p. 132. 

t •* MantraUteratur," p. 175. 



406 RELATIVE LOCATION OF VEDIC AND BUDDHIST CULTURE. 

the remainiiig parts of the Bigveda, ; there is in them no deficiency 
of passages where mention is made of the Tntsn king Snd^s and 
his father, DivodAsa Atithigva, the conqueror of Qamhara. If we 
are thns authorized to presuppose that' the TWtsus are identical 
with one of the elsewhere-mentioned stocks — and certainly in all 
probability with one of those frequently mentioned — there thus 
remain, in fact, as the Five Peoples are excluded on account of 
their enmity against the Tn'tsus, apparently only the Bharatas of 
whom we can entertain a thought. That vii, 33, 6, can be used as 
well to support as to controvert this view is evident. Direct support 
of this identification of the Tn'tsus with the Bharatas is found* in 
the following considerations : — 

Tn'tsus, like Bharatas, are enemies of the Purus, mentioned 
elsewhere in the i^k- Samhita as a rule in a friendly tone, and 
certainly the poet belonging to the Vasish^Mdee sides with the 
Tntsus as with Bharatas ; cf . vii, 8, 4 ; 18, 13, etc. 

The king of the Tntsus is Sud^s ; the praise of Sudlls and of the 
Bharatas is found coupled in iii, 53, 9. 12. 24. 

In vi, 16, 4. 5, cf. v, 19, the prayer for DivodAsa and for the 
Bharatas is united in such a fashion that one can scarcely help 
taking Divodtlsa for a Bharata. But DivodUsa is, according to viii, 
18, 25, the father of Sudas, the king of the Tntsus. 

The question of the historical position of the Tntsus thus merges 
in that of the position of the Bharatas, and to this latter question 
we have now to address ourselves. 

The BrSlimana texts tell us of Bharata heroes in a distant 
antiquity as well as of such as must be regarded as belonging to 
a not very remote past. In the list of A9vamedha offerers (" ^at." 
xiii, 5, 4) two Bharata princes appear : Bharata himself, the son of 
Dushyanta, and ^atanika Satrajita; the accompanying verses on 
both occasions point to the incomparable nobility of the Bharata or 
Bharatas, whose greatness is as far beyond that of other mortals 
as the heavens are above the earth. The family, as belonging to 
which those two princes were regarded by the compilers of the 
Brahmawa text, proceeds from the person of the priests, who are 

* To a great extent already cited by Lndwig, p. 175. 



THE BHABATAS. 



407 



named in connection with them ; Bhartita, DansLyanti boB received 
the kingly infitaliation from DirghatamaB Mamateya, therefore from 
a BtBhl of the liik-SFwnhita (" Ait." viii, 23), gatanika Satr^jita on 
the contrary from Soma^nshman VajaratnAyaiia ("Ait." viii, 21), 
therefore from a man, whom his name already stamps ae belonging 
to a later epoch. 

That the oxietence and prominent importance of the Bharataa 
continued down to the age of the compiler of the BrAhmaim. ia 
alao evident from a series of other passages,* ia which reference is 
made to cnstoms of the Bhavatas nsnally in enoh a way that the 
Bharatas appear in what they say and do as the nile for correct 
procednre, once (" Ait." iii, 18) alao in Bach a manner that the 
knowledge of the Bharata cnatoni ia freely designated as something 
which not every one has. 

In the lifitB of tribes in "Ait. Br." 8, 14, and in ^lann tbe 
Bharatas are wanting; as little do we meet them in the Buddhiste' 
ennmeration of peopie8,t or in the nnmerons references made by 
the Baddhifit texts to the peoples through whose country Buddha 
Tranders or wio figure in any other place in Bnddbist sacred 
hietory.J And anyone who goes throngh the mentionings made of 
lie Bharatas in the Brahmawa tests will find that there, in a certain 
way, the course is being prepared already for the vanishing of the 

* " Ait." il, 25 ; iii, 18 (twioe) ; " ^t." v, i, 4, 1. WhoeTer oonaiaerB these 
pusagea b; themselves and in compariBon -with the evidence to be explained 
fnither on, will Ecatcelj adhere to the significatioii "msic^iuaij Eoldier" for 
Bharata (vide Pet. Lei.), bat see in it solely the name of the tiibe. I emend 
Battanfim in " Ait." ti, 23, to Saivatflm {according to " ^at." liii, 6, 4, 31, which 
teading— aa opposed to the Lex.— is aopported by" Ait." viii, H), and tranelale: 
■• therefore even now go the Bharatas forth tor plunder against the Setsala, and 
their oharioteera say : For a foorth pact," etc. 

t One Sotta of the " Aiiguttara Nikdja " (Aflfianlplta) ; aofasaunammabSJana- 
podftnam . . . eejyath' tdam : Angilnam Mogadbllnaui KAainaTn Kosalilnam 
Vajjinam Hall^am Cetiy&iiain Vs.m^&.Dam (so agreeing two M3S. conaalted by 
nie. In the Janavasabhasutta I find EisikoEalesa VajjimaUesu Cetivamaesn 
Eonipiuia&leBu MacchasQrasenesu), CurAnani FaScSISnam Maoob&aam Surase- 
nftnam Assak^naTft Avantlnam OandMrHnam Eambojlnant. 

{ The only mentioii known to me of the Bharatas in the eaered Pfili leita 
oocura in the Govindaantta [" Dlgha-NikSya "). It is there narrated how in old 
times, atler the death of the king Disamjiati [cL " Wpav." 3, 40), the Brahman 



408 RELATIVE LOCATION OF VEDIO AND BUDDEI8T CULTUBE. 

Bharata name out of tlie circle of Indian tribal names which are 
wont to be mentioned. The Bharatas are referred to with great 
deference, but in quite another tone than that adopted with r^ard 
to the peoples influencing the life of the Kurus, Videhas, etc. ; in 
the]^incidental way in which, for example, Brahmans of the Kuru- 
pancMa stock are spoken of, or in which it is said that some one 
wanders in the^country of the Matsyas or U9inaras, the Bharatas 
do not appear. The peculiar importance and at the same time the 
isolation of the Bharatas shows itself^ perhaps, in the most decisive 
manner when Agni is spoken of as brahma^ta Bharata (" ^at. Br." 
i, 4, 2, 2), and is invited to dispose of the ofEeriug Manushvad 
Bharatavat (ibid, i, 6, 1, 7). 

We may, perhaps, be allowed to surmise that in the Bharatas we 
have to do with a stock which in the time of the Brahamana had 
politically merged in, or was about to meige in, one of the great 
peoples of India in that age, but which had attaching to its name 
the splendour of great memories and sacral precedence. If we ask 
after the people, which may have absorbed the Bharatas, it is most 
natural to seek them in those tracts to which in the Brahmana 
period especially the highest sacral authority appertains in the 
domains of the Kurupancala. It fits in with this that, according 
to " ^at. Br." xiii, 5, 4, 11. 21, one Bharata king has obtained a 
victory over the Ka9is, another has made offerings to GangS. and 
Yamuna. It further tallies with the fact that the formula of the 
king's proclamation (esha vo, N. N., raja) for the people that is 
addressed, the following variants occur : KuravaA, PancalaA, Kum- 

Govinda divided the kingdom between BeTzn, the son of the king, and the " anne 
cha khattiy&." It is said of this : — 

" Tatra sudam majjhe Bennssa ranno janapado hoti. 

Bantapuram KaUng&nam Assak&nam ca Potamam 

Mahiyata Avantinam Sovir&nan ca Borukam 

Mithild ca Videh&nam Camp4 Angesu m&pit& 

B§Lrinsi ca K&sinam ete Goyindam&pit4 'ti. 

Sattabhii Brahmadatto ca Yessabh^ Bharato saha 

BcTzu dve ca DhatarattM tadfisum satta Bh&rat& 'ti. 

It is seen how here the name of the Bharatas is used in a wider sense, 
embracing the whole of India (cf. Bh&ratavarsha), or at any rate its princes. 



THE BBABATA8. 409 

pancMa/i, and Bliarat^^ (vide Weber, " Ind. Lit. G."^ p. 126, note). 
With this, above all, fits in the conception running through the 
epics. Also those who, like ns, do not rate highly the confused 
representations of the Mah^bhUrata regarding the stocks of 
antiquity in genpral, will not be able to avoid giving a certain 
weight to the evidences which the great epic at every step, and, 
indeed, even by its name, furnishes to prove that the royal family 
of the Kurus was a Bharata family.* 

Our discussions hitherto regarding the Bharatas have not as yet 
dealt with the evidence famished by the JBik-Samhitsi. We now 
inquire, how does its testimony stand to the view of the Bharatas 
hitherto conjecturally evolved. 

In the hymns of the JBik we meet the Bharatas as one stock 
among many othersf ; the Vi9v^itra odes are well known in praise 
of ,the deeds of the Bharatas, the Vasish^^ ode referring to their 
(quondam) defeat. 

Also we find in the JBik-Samhita trace of a peculiar position 
occupied by the Bharatas, a special connection of theirs with 
important points of sacred significance, which are recognized 
throughout the whole circle of ancient Vedic culture. Agni is 
Bharata, i.e., propitious or belonging to the Bharata or Bharatas ; 
among the protecting deities, who are invoked in the Apri-odes, 
we find Bharati, the personified divine protective power of the 
Bharatas. 

We find the Sarasvati constantly named in connection with her ; 
must not the sacred river Sarasvati be the river of the holy people, 
the Bharatas ? In one ode of the MawcZala, which specially extols 
the Bharatas (iii, 23), the two BMratas, Deva^ravas and Devavata, 



* In this connection we may also point to the fact that the list of the 
A^vamedhay&jinas, " 9^t. £r." xiii, 5, 4, generally states with reference to each 
king the people over which he ruled (Purukutsa is designated as Aikshy&ko r&j&, 
Marutta as Ayogavo r&j&, Eraivya as Pancdio rsljS., and so on), but in three cases 
this detail is omitted apparently as superfluous : these cases are those of Jana- 
mejaya and his brothers, as well as Bharata and ^at&nika. The first-named 
was, as is well-known, a Kuru prince ; the two last were Bharata kings. 

t See the passages in Grassmann's Lexicon, and Ludwig, p. 175, Zimmer 
p. 127 seq. Cf. also " Taitt. Ar." i, 27, 2. 



410 BJSLATIVE LOCATION OF VEDIC AKD BUDDHIST CULTURE. 

are spoken of, who have generated Agni bj friction: on the 
Dfishadyati, on the Apaylk, on the Sarasvali may Agni beam. We 
find thns Bharata princes sacrificing in the land on the DrtishadTad 
and on the Sarasvaii. Now the land on the Dnshadyati and on 
the Sarasvati is that which is later on so highly celebrated as 
Knmkshetra. Thns the testimonies of the Samhitil and the 
Bn^hmavia combine to establish the close connection of tiie ideas 
Bharata, Knra, Sarasvail.* 

Out of the straggles in which the migratory period of the Vedic 
stocks was passed, the Bharatas issned, as we believe we are entitled 
to suppose the course of events to have been, as the possessors of 
the regions round the Sarasvati and Drtshadvali. The weapons of 
the Bharata princes and the poetical fame of their ^tshis may have 
co-operated to acquire for the cult of the Bharatas the character 
of universally acknowledged rule, and for the Bharatas a kind 
of sacral hegemony : hence Agni as friend of the Bharatas, the 
goddess Bh&rati, the sacredness of the Sarasvati and Drtshadvati. 

Then came the period, when the countless small stocks of the 
Samhita age were fused together to form the greater peoples of 
the Brahmana period. The Bharatas found their place, probably 
together with their old enemies, the Purus,t within the great 
complex of peoples now in process of formation, the Kurus ; their 
sacred land now became Kurukshetra. 

We return from this digression bearing on the Bharatas, to state 
the result of our main investigation. 

We found that the literature of the Brsihmanas points to a cer- 
tain definitely circumscribed circle of peoples as its home, as the 



* On the fact, that in the epic IZ& and Saiasvati are named among the divine 
ancestors of the Bharatas (*' M. Bh." i, 3760, 3779, etc.) I will lay no stress. 
More worthy of note, considering the close connection of the Bharatas and 
Kn^ikas (Zimmer, p. 128), is the fact that a tributary of the Brishadvatt bears 
the name Ean9iki (" M. Bh." iii, 6065). — ^Regarding the relation of the son of 
IZft, PnrfiraTas, to Knrnkshetra, see ** 9^t. Br." xi, 5, 1, 4. 

t Is it to be taken as connected with the vanishing of this enmity, that 
aheady in the iZik-Samhitft on some occasions Sudfis, or Divoddsa on the one 
side and Porakntsa, or Trasadasyu on the other, are named together in a friendly 
tone? i, 112, 14; vii, 19, 3. 



THE BHARATAS. 4H 

liome of geimine Brahmanism . We found that this circle of peoples 
Coirespcpnda with those whom Mann celebrates as upright in. life. 
We found finally, that the names of the stocks named in the 
BigTeda, especiaUy the moat pi-ominent of them, the PQrus, 
Tiirva^, Bharata-TWtsua, go back to the same circle of peoples. 

In this way wB shall be peimitted to consider established the 
statement preraised to this inqniry, that this circle of stocks has 
formed from of old a commnnity in itself closely inter-connected, 
separated from the Videhas, Magadhas, and also pi-obably, though 
less clearly, froni the Kosalas. Inasmuch aa at the time when 
those Btocks were pressing forwai'd through the Panjab towards 
their later habitations, we find this association and that separation 
already existing, we are entitle to assume that the Kosalaa, the 
Magadhas, the Videhas had at that time already pressed forward 
farther to the east, down the Ganges. Vedic culture has not Imd 
its home, originally at least, among these stocks of the east, but 
among the peoples of the western groap. 

It will be an interesting task to follow out the distmction hero 
indicated also on the lines of the dialects ;• but the time for its 
performance will not have come until Indian epigraphic has been 
based on wider and surer foundations than the first volume of the 
Corpua Inscriptionum presents. 



SECOND EXCUESUS. 



AnKOTATICKS ASD ACTHOHITIES FOB TEE HiSTORT OP BUDDHi's 
TOUTH. 

The several points noted in the account given in the text of the 
family from which Buddha sprang, are derived from " Cullavagga," 
Tii, 1 seq. (cf. "Dhp, Attb," p. 351), aa well as the following 
passages: BonadaniZafintta ("DighaN."): samanokhalubhoGotamO' 
pahGtam hiraiiuani. suvantiam ohaya pabbajito bhumigatani cft 
* Also tiie little which v/e can gather from Buddhist BOViceB regnrding the 
ni;thology of easteni lands and their religious termmology , go far aa this is cot 
OTsrgrown by the Veda, coincides by no meana witli what the western literalare 



412 K0TE8 OS THE BISTORT OF BUDDHA'S TOUTB 

vehsssJthtLm ca — ^ samano khala blio Gotemo arWhtlmU pabbajiio 
nwhafidliaTiA mahabhogi. — *^ Apadina," foL UiaA : nddhe kale 
inaliablioge nibbattissatti tAvade. 
'' ApadAna," fol. ko' : 

aparimejje ito kappe UVkakalrnlanainbhaYD (sic) 
Goiamo nimagottena satthi k>ke bbavissati. 
Idem. fol. gam' seq. : 

aparimeyye ito kappe bh^iplQo mahiddliiko 
Okkako nama nimena raja ratthe bhaTissati. 
soZasitthisahassanaiTt sabbasam pavari ca ja 
abbi jata khatti jani nava pntte janissatL 
nava pntte janitvana khattijlni marissati, 
tamnaya (sic) pija kanna mabesittafn karissati 
Okkakam tosajitvana yarani' kafina labhissad, 
varam laddbi ca sa kanna pntte pabbajajissati. 
pabbajita ca te sabbe gamissanti nagnttamam 
jitibhedabhaj4 sabbe bhaginihi samvasissare. 
eka 'va kanni bjidhibi bbavissati pnrakkbata, 
ma no jati pabbijja (sic) ti nikbanijanti kbattija. 
kbattijo nibaritvana tija saddbim Tasissati : 
bbavissati tada bbedo 1rTr^lrftlm 1»gaTnh|iaYo 
tesam paja bbavissanti Kolija nama jatija, 
tattha mannsakam bbogam annbbossanti nappakam. 
Here we mnst also compare the data given in the Amba/^^asntta 
<" Digha Nik^ja ") for the descent of Bnddha from Okkaka, as well 
as Sntta Kipata, " Paray. Vatthng." v, 16 (" Fansboll," p. 186). 
The Bohini as a bonndary stream between the Sakjas and the 
Koli jas : passantn tam Saki ja KoZija ca pacchamnkham Bohinijafm 
tsLTaniam (" Theragatha," foL khu'). 

Amba/^^asntta (" Digha N.") : The yonng Brahman AxahMka. 
says to Buddha: ekam idaham bho Gotama samayam acanyassa 
brahmanassa Fokkharasatissa kenacid eva karafuyena Kapilavatthum 
agamasim yena Sakyanam santhagaram ter* npasaynkamim. tena 
kho pana samayena sambahnla Sakya c'eva Sakyaknmara ca 
santhagare nccesn asanesn nisinna honti annamannafTi angnlipato- 
dakena samjagghanta samkiZantA annadatthn manneva maman Hera 
anojagghanta na nam koci asanena pi nimantesi. tayidam bho 



THE NAME QOTAMA. 415 

I 

Gotama na cchaiLam tayidam na ppatirupam jad ime Sakjd* ibbM 
Bajnkn^ na br^hmane sakkaronti, etc. In the " Ang. Nik." (vol. i, 
fol. kan) Bhaddija ElaZigodMya putta is mentioned as nccSkuli- 
k^nam agga among the Bhikkhos, apparently the same of whom 
" Cull." vii, 1 speaks. Dhammacetiyasuttanta (" Maj jh. N. ;" King 
Pasenadi is speaking) : bhagav^ pi Kosalako aham pi Kosalako. 
The supremacy of Pasenadi over the Sakyas appears from the 
following passage : Sakya kho pana V^se^^^a ranno Pasenadiko- 
salassa anantara anuyuttsl bhavanti ; karonti kho Yase^^^ Sakya 
ranne Pasenadimhi Kosale nipaccakaram abhivadanam paccu^^Aanam 
anjalikammam s^icikammam (Aggannasutta, " Digha K."). 

Buddha's claim to the *** gotta" of Gotama I cannot satisfactorily 
explain. The question must here be put in general terms : how is 
the appearance of a gotta-name among members of the Khattiya 
caste to be explained ? 

I give first of all the essential facts bearing on this point, so far 
as they are known to me. 

Each of those oft-mentioned noble families, in whose hands lies 
the government of separate towns and their adjacent territory, 
seems to have borne a gotta-name. Thus the Mallas of Kusimlra 
are denoted as Y&setthkB (" Mahaparinibb. Sutta," p. 55, etc.), the 
Mallas of P&va bear the same gotta (Samgitipariyslyasutta in the 
"Digha-Nikaya"), the Koliyas are styled Byagghapajja (often in the 
" Anguttara Nikaya ") . Is the name of their town Vy%hrapura con- 
nected herewith ? (Sp. Hardy, "Manual," p. 139.) In the Maha- 
padluLnasuttta is explained the descent, gotta and so on, of the six 
Bnddhas, who have preceded the Buddhas of the present age in 
the holy dignity. Three of these six Buddhas are Khattiyas, but of 
these, as well as of the other three, who are Brahmanas, the gotta 
is mentioned as something existing as a matter of course ; the three 
Elhattiyas are Kon(2annas, the three Brahmanas are Kassapas. The 
last Buddha himself is a Gotama, apparently because his whole 
family are (v. Bumouf , " Introd." p. 155) ; at least his father ia 
addressed as Gotama (" MahS,vagga " i, 54, 4) ; likewise his cousin 
Ananda (** Vangisathera Samyutta," fol. ca, of the Phayre MS.) ; 
Mah^paj^pati, who at the same time belongs to the Sakya race 



414: NOTES ON THE lUSTOBY OF BVDDEA'B YOUTH. 

(" Lai. Vist." p. 28 ed. Calc. ; " MaMvamsa,** p. 9), bears the name 
Gotami ; so also her sister Mkjk (" Therag&thA," fol. khu') ; finally 
we have in " J4t Atth." i, 60 and elsewhere Kis& Gotami, who is to 
be regarded apparently as a young Sakya woman. — ^Nnmerons 
other instances of the application of a gotta-designation to persons 
of the Khattiya class are to be fonnd in the Jinacaritra of the Jainas 
and in inscriptions (it is enough to refer at present to Cunningham, 
the " Stupa of Bharhut," p. 128 seq., and Buhler's notice therewith 
given) . 

From these data it appears to me to follow with great proba- 
bility, that according to that view of custom which is disclosed by 
the Buddhist and Jainist texts, every family of the Khattiya as 
well as of the Brd.hma7ia caste bears the gentile name of one of the 
Yedic Brahman-gottas. If in the case of kings like Bimbis^ra or 
Pasenadi such a gotta cannot be pointed to, the reason of this 
seems not to be that they had no gotta name, but rather that the 
appellation mahar^ja or deva was looked on as more respectful and 
consequently more correct than Yase^^^a or Gotama. 

That in the appropriation of these Brahmanical names we have 
to do with a universal usage, not with a special right of individual 
families, dependent for instance on relationships of af&nity, is also 
rendered probable by the verse often quoted in Buddhist suttas : 

khattiyo settJio jane tasmim yo gottapa^isarino. 

An extension of the mode of distinction here referred to, to 
persons of the third class, does not appear to have taken place ; 
otherwise traces of it could scarcely have been omitted in the 
numberless cases, where they must have been expected to occur in 
our texts. 

The designation of Buddha as Grotamides is usually traced to this, 
that the dignity of purohita may have lain in the case of the Sakyas 
in the hands of the Gtkutama-race.* As is well known, according 
to the Brahmanical custom of offering at the Pravara ceremonyi 
instead of the naming of the ancestors of the person Tnftlnng the 

* An express statement that this was the case, of eonrse is not found in our 
tianslation. 



BHVATION OF EAPILAYATTnU. 415 

oflerin^, in case the latter is not a Brahman, the naming of the 
anceatiora of hia pnrohita mast or can take place (Weber, " Indieche 
Stadien," x, 73, ?9 ; Hillebrandt, " Daa Altindische Nen- nnd Voll- 
mondsopfer," S. 81, A. 1). Bat from the usage of calling upon the 
Agni as the Agni who haa serred the Gotama, in the case of the 
offering of a man who haa a Gaatama as pnrohit, to the designation 
of the man himself and hia whole house aa " descendants of the 
Gotama," seBtns to me far too wide a step for us to be able to accept 
that mode of explanation without hesitation. Here there may ba 
fictioBB^and expreasions of caste-rivalry at play, which to lay bare 
even by conjecture the materials at present at our disposal do uot 
Hoffice. 

To the queetioa of the position of the Sakya kingdom and of the 
town of Kapilavatthn we need not return in detail ait«r what has 
been said above, p. 92, 25 [seq. That Kapilavatthu iteelf lay 
immediately on or in the Himalaya cannot be admitted in face of 
the silence which Fa Hian and Hiouen Thaang observed as to the 
mountain in their descriptions of the town. Tme, it is said ia the 
PabbajjSsutta regarding the Saiyas (" Sutta Nipata," cf. Fansboll's 
Trans., p. 68) : ujum janapado . . . Himavantossa paaaato ; 
but this warrants a conclusion as to the situation at the Himalaya 
of the territory only of the Sakyas, not of their capital. That Eapi- 
Iftvatthu, if it did not He in the moantain, may not even have Jain 
in the girdle of damp hollows (the so-called Tarai) which surrounds 
the southern margin of the mountain, that it must thus have lain 
south of the Tarai, cannot he alleged with certainty. The condition 
of the land and air has not been here at all times the same ; in 
tracts of the Nepalese tarai, where now malaria prevails and only 
tiger and wild boar live, are to bo found the splendid ruins of great 
ancient cities (Hodgson in the " Jonm. As. Soc," Bengal, 1835, 
p. 121 seq.). 

The death of Mayfi is often narrated in the tests of the Sutta 
Pitaka. 

To the circle of testimony collected on this point, the following 
passages also belong : " Samyutta Kik&ya," vol. iii, fol. ha: idam 
bhante Kapilavatthu iddhan c'eva phitaii ca bahujaiinam akiimama- 



416 NOTES ON THE HI8T0BT OF BUDDHA'S YOUTH. 

nnssam' sambMhabyillia?^, se khv kh&jn . . . akj&nhBJBa,TDa,ja,7n 
Kapilavatthm^i pavisanto bHante na pi hatthinlL sanuLgacch&mi 
bhante na pi assena . . . rathena ^ . . saka^ena . . . na pi 
purisena sam^gaccMmi. — Mahisaccakasntta (" Majjh. K.") : 
abhijd.ninii kho pandlia?7i pitn Sakkassa kammante sltd.ya jam- 
hucchkjkja, nisinno vivicc' e[va klLmejlii vivicca aknsalehi 
dhammehi . . . pa^AamajjMnam upasampajja yiharattsL (sic). To 
this later on was added the known legend of the YappamangaJa, 
" jat. Atth:' i, p. 57 seq. 

The following leads me to deny the antiquity of the tradition, 
which makes Buddha's father a king. When (as in the SonsLd&n- 
cZasutta of the "Dighll N.") the external claims of Buddha to 
respectful consideration are discussed, it is always admitted merely 
that he has come of an '^ uccakula, khattiyakula, ac2c2Aakula ;" it is 
emphasized that he, when he entered on a spiritual career, forsook 
relatives and friends, gold and silver ; the kingly dignity of the 
family is not alluded to. If anywhere, it is with reference to 
a circumstance of this kind, which assuredly could not have been 
suppressed, that the argumentimb ex silentio is applicable. To this 
another consideration must be added. Anyone who knows the 
uniform care with which the titulary appellation of persons 
appearing in the Pifetkas is observed, will also find this difference 
decisive, that Buddha's father is there named merely Suddhodhana 
Sakka (" Mahavagga," i, 64, and cf . the passage cited above from the 
" Mahasaccakasutta ") ,3ust as mention is made of Anuruddha Sakka, 
Upananda Sakyaputta, &c., while Bhaddiya, who was really king 
of the Sakyas — if we may call this petty rajji a king — ^is regularly 
introduced as Bhaddiya Sakyaraja (" Cullav." vii, 1, 3 seq.). 
Moreover, Suddhodana is addressed **Grota!ma" ("Mahav."l. c), 
as the Mallas are called Y^&ttM,, the Koliyas ByagghapajjS,, but 
no one says to him " Mah^r^ja " as to Bimbisara or Fasenadi. — The 
oldest evidence which attributes to Suddhodana the kingly dignity, 
as far as I know the only passage of the kind in the Tipi^aka, 
occurs in the MahapadhS-nasutta ("Digha N."), where a series 
of notices of the lives of the last seven Buddhas is thrown together. 
In a systematic manner, exactly as in the pa>ssage apparently 



BUDDHA NOT A KING'S SON. 417 

modelled on this Sutta, " Dip." xvii, 3 seq., there is recorded the 
length of life, the parentage, home, tree of knowledge, Savakayuga, 
&c., of these Bnddhas. ' The three first were kings' sons, the 
following three Brahmans' sons, the last is again a king's son, 
the son of Snddhodhana r^j^. Possibly similar is the statement 
also in the conclnding portion of the Buddhavawisa — ^it would 
be qnite in keeping with the character of this text; I regret 
not to be able to make any statement on this part of the said texta^ 
as it is not accessible to me at present. There is no need of 
enlarging to show that in any case evidence of this description 
mnst retire before the momenta previously brought to bear on this 
question. From the Buddhavamsa (Phayre MS., fol. ju') I have 
noted the verse : — 

m&jhabm janettik^ mata Mayadeviti vuccati. 

Cf . Rahulam^ta devi, " Mahslvagga," i, 54. 

As the birthplace of the Bodhisatta later tradition nam.e3 the 
Lumbini grove : from the Tipi^aka itself the bnly passage bearing 
on this question known to me, is the following from the Nalakasutta 
of the Sutta Nipata : — 

— ^jato 
Sakyanaw game janapade Lampuneyye.* 

The wonders connected with the conception and birth of the 
Bodhisatta are detailed in the Accharijabahutasutta of the '* Majjh. 
Kik^ya " (cf. " Mahaparinibb^na Sutta," p. 27) ; there the law is laid 
down as universally valid, that the mother dies seven days after 
the birth of the child, and is bom again in the heaven of the Tusita 
deities ; also the so-called Sihanada ('' aggo 'ham asmi lokassa," 
&c., cf . " Jat. Atth" i, p. 53) is there mentioned. The presenta- 
tion of the child to the i^'shi Asita (or as he is named in the '^ Jat. 
A^^." i, p. 54, K&Zadevala) is narrated in the just-mentioned 
Nalakasutta of the Sutta Kipataf (v. Fausbdll's translation). 

* So the Phayre MS.; cf. Fausbdll's translation, p. 125. The compiler of 
the passage seems to have been hampered by metrical necessity he wished 
midoubtedly to say : Saky&nam janapade gdme Ifi, 

t Also this Sutta belongs to the texts, in which we could not but assuredly 

27 



4:18 NOTES ON THE BISTORT OF BUDDHA'S YOUTH. 

Tonching the youth of the Bodhisatta the most important passage 
is found in the ** Angnttara Nikaya " (I give it exactly according 
to the MS., vol. i, fol. nn') : snkhnmMo 'aham bhikkhave parama- 
snkhnmalo accantasnkhnm^lo. mama snkham bhikkhave pitu 
nivesane pokkharaniyo hllriy^kd. honti, ekattha snkham bhikkhave 
uppalam vappati ekattha padnmarri ekattha pnnnarikaTTi y^vad 
evam atth^ya. na kho pana es' &hami bhikkhave k^sikam candana9>^ 
dh^remi, k^sikam bhikkhave sn me tam ve^^anam hoti kasika 
kancnka kasikam niv^sana??^ kasiko nttarasango. rattidiva^Ti kho 
pana me su tarn bhikkhave setachatta^n- dh&reyya ma nam phnssi 
sitam v^ nnham vl. tinaw va rajo v^ ussavo va 'ti. tassa mayhaTW' 
bhikkhave tayo pasada ahesn7n (this is shown to be a nniversal 
custom by comparing " Mahavagga," i, 7, 1 ; " Cullavagga," vii, 1, 1) 
eko hemantiko eko gimhantiko eko vassiko 'ti. so kho aham 
bhikkhave vassikap^sade vassike cattaro mase nipppurisehi tnriyehi 
paricariyamano na he^^ha pasada orohami. yath^ kho pana bhikk- 
have annesam nivesane dasakammakaraporisassa kaTiajakam bhoja- 
nam diyyati bilangadutiyam evam eva su me bhikkhave pitu 
nivesane dasakammakaraporisassa salima?nsodano diyyati. N"ow 
follows the narrative translated at p. 102 seq., how the thought of 
old age, disease, and death is awakened in him : therewith ends the 
part of that text beariug on this matter. Let it be observed that 
the origin of these thoughts is not here attributed to an external 
occurrence like the well-known four excursions. The history of 
these excursions has been transferred to the later legends, as is 
almost expressly stated in the " Jat. Atth" i, p. 59, from the 
Mahapadhanasutta (" Digha Nikaya"), where it is introduced as 
referriug to the Buddha Vipassi* (there and in the Mahapurisa- 

expect a reference to the birth of the Bodhisatta in a royal house,ranless this 
feature first belonged to the later tradition. In Professor FausboU's translation 
of this Sutta Suddhodana's house is designated a "palace," and the child 
frequently a " prince ;" the Pali text has hlmvana and kumdra respectively. 

* "When the compiler of this conunentary there says for brevity's sake, that 
the dialogue between the Bodhisatta and the charioteer may be suppUed after 
that Sutta, it follows apparently that a Sutta which narrated the corresponding 
occurrence regarding Gotama, was quite as unknown to the commentator as 
it is to me. Also, the appeal made in " J&t.," i, 69, line 39, to the commentary- 
tradition shows that there was no text to which an appeal could have been made. 



THE DEPARIUBE FROM: KAPILAVATTEU. 419 

lakkhanasutta of the " Digha N.," the 32 Lakkhawas of the Maha- 
pnrisa are also discussed). Of Gotama Buddha the excursions are, 
as far as 1 know, never narrated in the Tipi^aka.* 

Regarding the wife and child of Buddha the chief passage is 
"Mahavagga," i, 54 ;f Rahula is frequently mentioned in the Sutta 
texts as Buddha's son, without any prominent *roZe being ascribed to 
him among the circles of disciples by the ancient tradition. 

Touching the Pabbajja, first of all we must quote the Pabbajja- 
sutta in the " Jat. Atth.,*^ i, p. 66, which stands in the Sutta Nipata 
(Fausboirs translation, p. 67, seq.). It begins : 

Pabbajjam kittayissami yatha pabbaji cakkhuma 
yatha vimamsamano so pabbajjam samarocayi. 
sambadh' ayam gharavaso rajassayatanam iti 
abbhokaso ca pabbajja iti disvana pabbaji. 
pabbajitvana kayena papakammam vivajjayi, 
vaciduccaritam hitva ajivam parisodhayi. 
agama Rajagaham buddho, and so on. 

Then follows a narrative of the meeting of the coming Buddha 
and king Bimbisara, presented in the " Jat. Atthy i, p. 66, After 
this Sutta there comes next the following fragment of the 

• Here also the verses of the M&nava Thera (" Therag." fol. ku) may be 
inserted : 

jiTZTzam ca disv^ dukhitaii ca byddhitam 
mataii ca disvd gatam ^yusamkhayam 
tato aham nikkhamitumna pabbajim 
pah^ya kdmdni manoram&niti. 
(To all appearance we here have the Form nikkhamitiina, after which what has 
been said by me in Kuhn*s " Zeitschr. N. F." v, 323 seq., is to be supplied.) 
So of the Buddha Dipamkara (" Buddhavamsa/' fol. cai of the Phayre MS.) : 

nimitte caturo disv& hatthiySnena nikkhami. 
Similarly of the Buddha Eondanna (ibid. fol. co.) : 

nimitte caturo disv& rathaytoena nikkhami. 
Similarly of the following Buddhas. Whether at the close of the Buddha- 
vamsa the same is directly said of Gotama Buddha, I cannot state at this moment. 
Improbable it is not ; here, as also elsewhere, the traces of later legend-building 
may already be discernible in the most recent parts of the Pitakas themselves ; a 
fact which naturally would not be able to shake the elsewhere acquired inference 
regarding the earlier and later form of representations of Buddha's life, 
t Cf. Dr. Davids's and my note to our translation of this passage. 

27* 



420 NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF BUDDHA'S YOUTH. 

Sonadam2asntta (" Digha N.") recurring at many other places, trans- 
lated at p. 105 : samaTio khala bho Gotamo daharo samano snsnklL- 
2ake sobhadrena yobbanena samann&gatopa/^amena vayasa agsbrasm^ 
anag&riyam pabbajito; samano khaln bho Gotamo aksbnak&nam 
matd.pitannam assnmnkbd.nam rndantdnam kesamassum oh&retv^ 
k&s&y&ni vatthani accli4dety& aglb:'asm4 anag^riyavTi pabbajito. 
Cf. also the passages quoted later on (p. 421). The narrative given 
in later legends (e.g. " Jat. Atth,*^ i, p. 61) of the night scene in 
Buddha's bedroom, which precedes his flight, is to be found, if 
nothing have escaped me, in the Tipi^aka, told not of Buddha 
himself, but of one of his earliest converts, Yasa (" Mahavagga," 
i, 7, 1. 2) and seems to have been thence transferred at a later time 
to the legends of Buddha. The age of the Bpdhisatta at the time 
of his Pabbajja is stated in the *' Mahaparinibbanasutta," p. 59, to 
have been twenty-nine years. 

Regarding the time from the Pabbajja to the Sambodhi the 
tradition of the Tipi^aka is to be found in the following passages. 

The duration of this period is frequently set down at seven years, 
i.e., it is said that Mara pursued the Bodhisatta for seven years 
up to the last vain attack he made on him; P&dhanasutta of the 
Sutta-Nipata : 

satta vassani bhagavantam anubandhim padapadam 
otaram nadhigacchissam sambuddhassa satimato. 

Similarly in the Marasamyutta of the " Samy. Nikaya " (vol. i, foL 
ghi') : tena kho pana samayena (namely, when Buddha shortly 
after attaining deUverance sat under the tree) Maro p^pima 
satta vassani bhagavantam anubaddho hoti otarapekho otaiam 
alabhamano. 

The consecutive narrations touching this period represent the 
Bodhisatta after his Pabbajja confiding himself to the guidance of 
AZara Kalama,* and Uddaka Bamaputta (the place where these 

* We find two veisions side by side in the sacred P&li-Eanon ; on the one side 
it is related that Baddha left his home and went to B&jagaha, where the meeting 
with Bimbis&ra took place ; on the other it is said that he left his home and went 
to AZ&ra K & l & m a. The later texts naturally arrange the different oeconenoes in 
4Xie series. It is worthy of remark that the southern tradition and the northern 



THE PERIOD PBECEDINQ THE SAMBODHI. 421 

persons lived is not given) ; then he goes on to Uruvela ; then 
follow the three comparisons (cf. " Lai. Vist." p. 309), his labours 
to obtain the goal by penances, at last the attainment of the 
Bnddhahood and the first incidents thereon following. 

This recital is to be found in different passages of the " Majjhima 
NiMya," namely, in the Ariyapariyosanasutta (here are omitted the 
three comparisons and the Dukkarakirika) ; in the Mahasacca- 
sutta, the Bodhirajakumarasuttanta, and the Saiigaravasuttanta. 

I furnish from the sources indicated a selection of what appears 
to me most essential. 

From the Mahasaccakasutta : 

Idha me Aggivessana pubbeva sambodha anabhisambuddhassa 
bodhisattass' eva sato etad ahosi : sambadho gharavaso rajapatho 
abbhokaso pabbajja. na yidam sukaram . . . (cf . " Mahavagga," 
V, 13, 1) . . . pabbajeyyan ti. so kho aham Aggivessana aparena 
samayena daharo 'va samano susukalake sobhadrena yobbanena 
samannagato pa^^mena vayasa akamakanam matapitunnam assu- 
mukhanam rudantanam kesamassum oharetva kasayani vatthani 
acchadetva agarasma anagariyam pabbajito samano kimkusalagavesi 
anuttaram santivarapadam pariyesamano yena Alaro Kalamo ten' 
upasamkamim, etc. 

From the Ariyapariyosanasutta (cf. " Lai. Vist." p. 295, seq.) : 

Atha khv aham bhikkhave yena Alaro Kalamo ten' upasamkamiTTi 
upasamkamitva Alaram Kalamam etad avocam : kittavata no S^vuso 
Kalama dhammam sayam abhinnaya sacchikatva upasampajja 
viharamiti pavedesiti. evam vutte bhikkhave Alaro K. akincanna- 
jatanam pavedesi. tassa mayham bhikkhave etad ahosi: na kho 
AMrass* eva Kalamassa atthi saddhS. mayham p' atthi saddha. na 
kho Alarass' eva Eiilamassa atthi viriyam . . • sati . . . 
samltdhi . . . panna mayham pi atthi panna. yan nunaham yam 
dhammam Alaro' K. sayam abhinnS.ya sacchikatvS. upasampajja 

have done so in different ways. The former represent Buddha as first going to 
B&jagaha and then to Al&r& (" Jkt" i, 66), the latter has the opposite course 
(" Lai. Vist.," p. 296 seq.) : it is seen significantly how here the two branches of 
later tradition have, independently of each other, gone on building for them- 
selves on a common basis, which is to us represented by the P&li-Pitakas. 



422 NOTES ON TEE HISTORT OF BUDDHA'S YOUTH. 

vihar^miti pavediti tassa dlxammassa saccliikiriy&ja padaheyyan ti. 
80 klio aham bhikkhave na cirass' eva khippam eva tam dhammam 
sajam abhinna saccliikaty4 npasampajja yih^im. atha kbv kha/m 
bhikkbaye yena Aliro K. ten' upasamkamim, upasamkamity^ 
Alaram K. etad ayocam : ett4yat4 no 4ynso Kal4ma imam dbam- 
mam a&jB,m abbinna saccbikaty4 npasampajja payedesiti. ettayat^ 
kbo ayuso imam dbammam sayam abbinM saccbikatya npasampajja 
payadesiti (payedemiti ?). abam pi kbo 4ynso ettayata imam 
dbammam sayam abbinna saccbikatya npasampajja yibaramiti. 
labba no aynso suladdbam no ^ynso ye mayam ayasmantam tadisam 
sabrabmacari77i passama, iti yabam dbammam sayam abb. s. npasam- 
pajja payedemi tam tyam dbammam sayam abb. s. npasampajja 
vibarasi, yam tvam dbammam sayam abb. s. npasampajja yibarasi 
tam abam dbammam sayam abb. s. npas. payedemi, iti yabam 
dbammam janami tam tyam dbammam janasi, yam tvam dbammam 
janasi tam abam dbammam janami, iti yadiso abam tadiso tyam, 
yadiso tvam tadiso abam. ebi dani avnso nbbo 'va santa imam* 
garwim paribarama 'ti. iti kbo bbikkbaye Alaro K^lamo acariyo me 
samano anteyasim samanam attano samasamam ^/lapesi niaraya ca 
Tn&m pujaya pujesi. tassa maybam bbikkbaye etad abosi : nayawi 
dbammo nibbidaya na yiragaya na nirodbaya na npasamaya na 
abbinnaya na sambodbaya na nibbanaya samyattati yayad eya 
akincannayatanupapattiya 'ti. so kbo abam bbikkbaye tsbtn dbammam 
analamkaritva tasma dbamma nibbijja pakkamim. so kbo abam 
bbikkbave kimkusalagavesi annttaram santivarapadam pariyesa- 
mana yena Uddako Ramapntto ten' npasawikamiw?, npasamkamitya 
JJddsbkam Ramaputtawi etad avocam^ iccbam abam avnso imasmim 
dbammavinaye brabmacariyam caritun ti. evam yntte bbikkbave 
Uddako Ramapntto mam etad avoca: vibarayasma, tadiso ayam 
dbammo yattba vinnu pnriso na cirass' eva sakam ^bcariyakam 
sayam abbinna saccbikatv^ npasampajja vibareyya 'ti. so kbo 
abam bbikkbave na cirass' eva kbippam eva tawi- dbammam 
pariyapumm. so kbo abam bbikkbave tavataken' eva o^^Aapaba- 
tamattena lapitalapanamattena nana (sic) vadami tberavadan ca 
janami passamiti pa^janami aban c'eva annesa^M ca (sic), tassa 
mayba??^ bbikkbave etad abosi : na kbo Ramo imam dbammam 



AlJba and uvdaka. 42a 

kevalam sabb^mantakena (sic) sayam abbinna sacchikatva npasam- 
pajja yibaramiti pavedesi, addha Ramo imam dhammam janam 
passam vibasiti. atba khv abam bbikkbave yena Uddako Rama- 
putto ten' upasamkamiTw, upasamkamitva Uddaka^w- Ramapnttam 
etad avocam: kittavata no avuso Ramo (sic) imam dbammam 
sayam abbinmi saccbikatva upasampajja pavedesiti. evai/i vutte 
bbikkbave Uddako Ramaputto nevasannanasannayatanaTw. pavedesi. 
tassa maybam bbikkbave etad abosi : na kbo RS/mass' -eva abosi 
saddba maybam p'attbi saddba (etc., tbe following, as above, is tbe 
story of AZAra Elalama. Ramapntta finally says) : ebi dani avuso 
tvam imam ganam paribara 'ti. iti kbo bbikkbave Uddako Rama- 
putto sabrabmacari samano acariya^^Mne mamam ^^pesi ularaya 
ca mam pujaya pujesi. tassa maybam bbikkbave etad abosi : nayam. 
dbammo nibbidaya . . . samvattati yavad eva nevasannana- 
sannayatanupapattiya 'ti. so kbo abam bbikkbave tarn dbammam 
analamkaritva tasma dbamma nibbijja pakkamim. so kbo abam 
bbikkbave kimkusalagavesi anuttaram santivarapadam parJ^e- 
samano Magadbesu anupubbena carikam caramano yena Uruvela 
senanigamo tad avasarim. tattb' addasam ramamyam bbumibbagam 
pasadikam ca vanasaizdam nadim ca sandantim setakam supatittbam 
ramamyam samanta ca gocaragamam. tassa maybam bbikkbave 
etad abosi : ramawiyo vata bho bbumibbago pasadiko ca vanasaw^cZo 
nadi ca sandati setak^ supatittba rama?iiya samanta gocaragamo 
alam ca tidam (sic) kulaputtassa padbanattbikassa padbanaya 'ti. 
60 kbo abam bbikkbave attana jatidbammo (. . . jaradbammo, 
vyadbidbammo, maranadbammo, sokadbammo, samkilesadbammo 
. . .) samano jatidbamme (. . . jar^dbamme, etc.) adinavam 
viditv^ ajatam (. . . ajaram etc.) yogakkbemam nibbanam pari- 
yesamano ajata?yi anuttaram yogakkbemam ajjhagama7n. . . . 
asamkili^^/iam anuttaram yogakkbema?/?. nibbana^w. ajjbagamam; 
nawan ca pana me dassana^w. udapadi: akupp^ me cetovimutti, 
ayam antima jati, n' attbi dani punabbbavo 'ti. tassa mayba??^ 
bbikkbave etad abosi : adhigato kbo me, etc. (vide " Mabavagga," 
i, 5, 2). 

As a rule we find between tbe period of instruction by AZara and 
Uddaka and tbe attainment of Sambodbi, a description of tbe 



424 NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF BUDDHA*S TOVTH. 

Dakkarak4rik4 inserted, wHicli on tbe whole corresponds to what 
is narrated in " Lai. Vist.," p. 314 seq. (excepting naturally the 
episode referring to M&y& devi). Also the three Upam^ of "Lai. 
Vist.," p. 309 seq., are found already in the Pali-Tipi^aka (in the 
Mah^saccakasntta) . 

I quote from the last named Sutta the close of this section which 
ends in the narration of the Sambodhi : — 

So kho ahaTTi Aggivessana o2arikam ^hdram &hkreaim odanakum* 
mSsam. tena kho pana mam Aggivessana samayena panca bhikkhii 
paccupa/^Ait^ honti* yan no B&m&no Grotamo dhammam adhigamis- 
sati tarn no acariss^ma 'ti. yato kho aham Aggivessana oZarikam 
^haram aharesim odanakumm^isam atha kho te panca bhikkhu 
nibbijja pakkamirnsu bahuliko samano Gt)tamo padhanavibbhanto 
4vatto bahullayS. 'ti. so kho aham Aggivessana oZarikamr aharam 
^harito (sic) balam gahetva vivicc' eva kamehi . . . (then follows 
the well known description of the attainment of the four Jhanas, 
thSn the attainment of the three Vijjas — ^pubbenivlLsananam, dibbam 
cakkhu, die ariyasacca — in the three Yamas of the night ; next :) 
tassa me evam janato evam passato kamasavipi cittam vimuccittha> 
bhavasavapi cittam vimuccittha, di^^^asav^pi c. v., avijjasav^pi c. v., 
vimuttasmim vimutt' amhiti nanam ahosi, khina me jati, vusitam 
bramacariyam, katam karaniyam, naparam itthattaya 'ti abbhan- 
nasim. 

This is the usual description of the Sambodhi, as it is found also, 
c.^., in the introduction to the Vibhanga ("Vinaya Pi^aka," iii, 
p. 4 seq.), in the Bhayabheravasutta ("Majjh. Nikaya"), and in 
the Dvedh&vitakkasutta (ibid). To the ancient Order the kernel 
and the sole essential to the event of Sambodhi (i.e., the attain- 
ment of Buddhahood) appeared to be the springing forth of such 
and such a knowledge, and of such and such qualities in the mind 
of the Buddha, and nothing else. 

This shows itself also in the somewhat abbreviated narratives of 

* Cf. also " MahS,Yagga," i, 6, 5, and specially with reference to EoTzdauua 
Apadana, fol. khe' : — 

nikkhantendnnpabbajji (sic), padhdnam sukatam may&, 
kilese jMpanattMya pabbajjim (sic) anag&riyam. 



THE 8AMB0DHL 425 

a similar kind^ in which the attainment of delivering knowledge 
by certain disciples, male and female, is described. Thus in the 
history of the Pupphacha(£(Zaka (see above, p. 159, n. 1, " Thera- 
g&tha," fol. kho—kho') : 

so liam eko arannasmim viharanto atandito 
akasi[m] satthu vacanam yatha insbm ovadi jino. 
rattiy^ pa^Aamam yamam pubbajatiw anussari[m], 
rattiya majjhimam yamam dibbacakkhnm visodhayi?^, 
rattiylt pacchime yame tamokhandham padalayim. 
tato ratya vivasane* snriynggamanam pati 
Indo Brahm^ ca agantva mam namassimsu anjali : 
namo te pnrisajanna, namo te pnrisnttama, 
yassa te ^sav^l khina, dakkhit^yy' asi marisa. 

Similarly in the verses of the Vijaya, " Therigatha,'* fol. gham- : 

bhikkhnnif upasamkamma sakkaccam paripucch' aham, 
SSL me dhammam adesesi dhatuayatanani ca. 
cattari ariyasacc^ni indriyani balani ca 
bojjhanga^^ngikam maggam nttamatthassa pattiya. 
tassaham vacanam sntv^ karonti annsasanim 
rattiya pnrime yame pubbajatim annssarim, 
rittiya majjhime yame dibbacakkhum visodhayim, 
rattiya pacchime yame tamokkhandham padalayim, 
pitisnkhena ca kayam pharitva viharim tada ; 
sattamiya pade pasaremi, tamokkhandham padalayi [m]. 

Compare also the narrative of the Jainas conched throughout in 
similar style, of how Mahavira obtained the delivering knowledge, 
** Jinacaritra," p. 64, ed. Jacobi. 

I here insert the prophecy of the Buddha Dipamkara regarding 
Gotama's Buddhahood, contained in the Buddhavamsa (fol. ci' of 
the Phayre MS.) : 

padh^nam padahitvana katvsl dukkarakarikam 
Ajapalarukkhamidasmim nisiditv4 tathagato 

* So the MS. ; originally it may have been vivas&no. 
t Lege: bhikkhunim. 



426 NOTES ON THE EI8T0BY OF BUDDHA'S YOUTH. 

tattha payasam paggayha (comp. " Jat.," i, p. 69) Neranjaram 

upehiti. 
Neranjaraja tirambi pajasam adaso jino 
patijattaYaramaggena bodhimiilaiii npehiti, 
tato padakkhinam katva hodhini&ndsja anuttaro 
assattharukkbamulamhi bujjhissati mabayaso. 

Tbe narratives of Mara's attacks do not stand in tbe sacred texts 
in immediate connection witb tbe bistory of tbe attainment of 
Sambodbi. Before tbe Sambodbi is placed tbat conversation recited 
in tbe Padbanasntta (" Sntta Nipata," p. 69 of Pansboll's trans- 
lation), of wbicb a nortbern Buddbist version, pretty closely corre- 
sponding witb tbe PMi text, occurs in tbe metrical portion of tbe 
"Lalita Vistara," pp. 327-329. After tbe Sambodbi, witbin tbe 
period wbicb Buddba passed under tbe tree Ajapala, fitlls tbe 
similar narrative of tbe Mara Samyutta (" Samy. Nikaya," vol. i, 
f ol. gbi-gbu ; bere after tbe temptation by Mara comes tbat by bis 
daugbters). 

As regards tbe bistorical trustwortbiness of tbe traditions, wbicb 
relate to tbe period intervening between Buddba's fligbt from bis 
bome and tbe commencement of bis public career, I am inclined to 
recognize in tbe leading points tberein mentioned real facts. Tbe 
names of AZara Kalama and Uddaka EAmaputta are as trustworthy 
as possible ; if tbere bad bere been an intention to invent, more 
famous names would bave been preferably fumisbed, names of 
teacbers, wbo bave adopted later on a pronounced attitude, wbetber 
friendly or bostile, to Buddba's own public operations. AZara, as 
far as I know, besides being named in tbis connection, is elsewbere 
mentioned only in tbe " Mabaparinibb. Sutta," p. 44 ; of Uddaka 
also we bear but little.* 

* " Samy. Nik.," vol. ii, fol. ghl' : Uddako sudam bikkhave KAmaputto evaw .Xi 
\txia.m bh&sati : idam j^tu yedagtl idam j&tu sabbaji idam j&tu apalikbitam gm^f^^ri 
mtd&m palikhaniti.— " Pas&dikasutta " (" Digha-N.") : Uddako suds^i^-Cun^r 
E&maputto evam \kc&m bh&sati ; passam na passattti. kiwi ca passam na passatf a ? 
khurassa s&dhunissitassa talam assa passati dh&ran ca khv assa na passati, 'Sbm 
vuccati Cunda passaTw na passatiti.— The relations of the rfi,j& Eleyya /o the 
samawa E&maputta are mentioned at " Ang. Nik.," vol. i, fol. ti. 



SOME MATTERS OF BUDDHIST DOGMATIC. 427 

THIRD EXCURSUS. 

Appendices and Authorities touching some matters of the 

^Buddhist Dogmatic. 

1. The Nirvatja. 

In order to clearly set forth the dogmatic terminology of the 
Nirvaiia doctrine, we must first of all go into the categories of the 
Annpadisesanibbana and of the Sanpadisesanibbana (Nirvawa 
respectively without and with a residuum of " Upadi"). Childers 
has,^ as is known (" Diet.," pp. 267, 526), propounded the theory 
that by Sanpadisesanibbana is meant the condition of the perfect 
fiaint, in whom the five Khandas are still to the fore, but the desire 
which chains to being is extinct ; Annpadisesanibbana, on the other 
hand, is said to designate the cessation of all being, the condition 
or non-condition ensuing on the death of the saint. 

To the criticism, adverse to this view, which I propose to advance, 
I premise a collection of relevant passages from the texts. 

In connection with the notion of Nirvawa the following outwardly 
similarly sounding expressions occur: — Upadhi; upadana con- 
nected with upada, upadaya, and anup^dana con. with anupada, 
anupadaya ; lastly upadisesa, saupadisesa and anupadisesa. I give 
s, few of the most important passages for each of these termini in 
order. 

First for Upadhi. • 

Sunakkhattasuttanta (in the " Majjh. N.") : — 

So >'ata Sunakkhatta bhikkhu chasu phassayatanesu samvutakin 
upadhi dukkhassa mulan ti iti viditva nirupadhi upadhisamkhaye 
vimutto upadhismiwi va kayam upasamharissati cittam va anuppa- 
dassanti (mel. °dassati) : n' etam ^^anam vijjati. 

" Samyuttaka Nikaya," vol. i, fol. nau' of the Phayre MS. : — 

yam kho idam anekavidham nanappakarakam dukkham loke 
nppajjati jaramaranam idam kho dukkha?;^ upadhinidanam upad- 
hisamudayam upadhijatikam upadhipabhavam ; upadhismim sati 
jaralmaranam hoti ; . . . upadhi panayam kimnidana etc. ? upadhi 
tanhanidano tawhasamudayo etc. 



428 SOME MATTERS OF BUDDHIST DOGMATIC. 

** Itivnttaka," fol. kaA of the Phayre MS. :— 

tisso iin4 bhikkhave dh^tuyo. katamd. tisso ? riipadMta arapa- 
dMtu nirodhadhatu. ime (lege : im^) kbo bhikkhaTe tisso dMtnyo 
'ti. 

rupadb^tnparinSdya arupesa asanfMt^l 

nirodhe ye vimuncanti (**ccaiiti ?) te jana paccnbayino 'ti (mac- 
cnb^yino ?) 

k^yeiia amatam dhMujM. pbnsayitvS. nirupadbi 

npadhipatinissaggam saccbikatv^na andsavo 

desesi sammSsambnddbo asokam virajam padan ti. 

" Samyuttaka N.," vol. i, fol. ki (= Suttanipata, Dbaniya- 
satta. 
Tbe first disticb is put in tbe moutb of Mara) : — 

nandati pnttebi pnttim^ goma gobbi tatb' eva nandati ; 

upadbibi narassa nandanu na bi so nandati yo nirupadbiti. 

socati puttebi pnttim^ gonial gobi tatb' eva socati ; 

npadbibi narassa socana na bi so socati yo nirupadbiti. 

" Samyuttaka N.," vol. i, fol. gba' : — 

yo dukkbam addakkbi yatonidanam k^mesu so jantu katban» 

nameyya ? 
npadbim viditva samgo 'ti loke tass' eva jantu vinay^ya sikkbe 

'ti. 

Ibid. fol. gbu' (Buddba is speaking to Mara) : 

amaccudbeyyam puccbanti ye jana p&ragamino 

tes' abam pu^^^ akkbami yam taccbam tarn nirupadbin ti. 

Ibid. fol. gbu' (Mora's daughters approacb, tempting tbe 
Buddba) : 

atba kbo bbagava na manas' akasi yatba tam anuttare upadbi- 
samkbaye vimutto. 

" Mabaniddesa," Pbayre MS., fol. ko :— 

katamo upadbiviveko ? upadbi vuccanti kilesa ca kbandM ca 
abbisamkbara ca. upadbiviveko vuccati amatam nibbalnam. 

Cf. also "Mabavagga," i, 6, 2 ; 22, 4. 6; 24, 3; v, 13^ 10; 

Cullavagga," vi, 4, 4; "Dbammap. A^^Aak.,*' p. 270; Bumouf, 
Introd.," p. 591 seq. ; M. Miiller on tbe "Dbammapada^" 418; 
Davids's and my note to tbe translation of tbe "Mabavagga," i, 5, 2. 






upAdAna. I29fl 

For TJpAd^a and tbo tcnaini connected therewith the following* J 
passage will suffice : — 

" Majjhima NLk3.ya," fol. khai' (Tumour's MS.) :— cattAr' imiLni 
bhikkhave upadaniini. katamSni cattiri. karanpadilnam. dii^finpS- 
danam silabbatupadanant attav&dTipMSaain. — Cf. "Mahanidiina 
Suttn," p. 248, ed. Grimblot. 

" Sajiiyuttaka Nikaya," vol. ii, fol. to seq. : — It is related that I 
" sambahnlanaiii aiiDatitthiyaHaraaMabrahmanaparibb&jakiinam 
tiihakBalanaHi sannisinnanam " the conversation tnraed on this, J 
that each of the sis. other teachers (Puraiia Kasaapa, etc.) "ai 
JtaiJi abbhatitaiji kalamkatam npapattisu by&karoti asa amntia | 
upapanBo asu arantm upapanno 'ti, yo pi 'ssa savako nttamapuriao I 
paramapuriao paramapattipatto tarn pi savakam abbhatitam kfilani- 
katai?! apapattian byakaroti asu amntra upapanno asu amutra I 
npapanno 'ti." Buddha, on the contrary, does the same only with I 
regard to the other Savakas, "yo ca khv aesn savako uttama- 
pnriso — pa — asu amntra upapanno 'ti (sic !) api ca kho nam e\a/rn 
byilkaroti acchejji taiiham vivattayi Banflojanan[ sammilm&nabhiBa- 1 
maya (sic) aatam akisi dukkhaasil 'ti." The Pai-ibbfijaka Vaccha- 
gotta addresses to Bnddha a request for the clearing up of thia 
point. Buddha answers: "alaii hi Vaccha kankhitam alam vici- 
Icicchitntii. kankhaniyo ca pana to tJikne vicikiccha nppannii. san- 
padSnassa khv Shajii Vaccha upapattim pafinnpemi no annpadioassa. 
eeyyathilpi Vaccha aggi saupadauo jalati no anupSdauo evam eva 
Miv khaan. Vaccha eaupadanassa upapattiii paniiAponii no anupfldfl- 
uassS. 'ti. yasmini bho Gotama samaye acchi yitena khitlA dflram 
pi gaocbati imissa pana bhavam Gotamo kint npfldanasmim pafinA- 
petiti. yasmiiti kbo Vaccha samaye acchi yitena khittA duraiit pi 
gacchati tam ahaiw v&tapadSnaro pafinapemi, vato hi 'saa Vaccha 
tafisim samaye upadilnam hotifci. yasmim bho Gotama samaye 
iman ca kajam nikkhipati aatto ca annataram kiyam anupapanno 
hoti, imassa pana Ijhavajit Gotamo kija npidanasmim pann&petiti. 
yasraijit kho Vaccha samaye imassa (sic) kayai« nikkhipati satto ca 
aflfiatanwt kayan; anupapanno hoti, tarn ahaw tanhnpftdAnamvadaml^ 
tarthft hi *sea Vaccha tasmim samaye apftdfl.nain hotiti." 
" Uali&pnwnamaya Suttanta " (" Majjhima Nikilya ") ; — 




430 SOME MATTERS OF BUDDHIST DOGMATIC. 

ime pana bbante pancnp^dfLnakkhandb^ kimmulak^ 'ti. ime kha 
bhikkbu pancnpsLd^nakkbandb^ cbandamulak4 'ti. tam jeva nn 
kbo bbante upkdknBmi te pancnp^d&nakkbandbd ndabu annatra 
pancnpMAnakkbandbebi up^Snam ti. na kbo bbikkbu ta^?^ 
jeva •a'pkdkntim pancnpdd4iiam pancnpsLdanakkbandbassa* na pi 
annatra pancnpddsLnakkbandbei [np^4nam]. npHd&nam kbo 
bbikkbu pancuplUl^nakkbandbesu cbandarago, tamtattba iip4- 
d^nan ti. 

We may mention in tbis connection also tbe place wbicb tbe 
category of Upaddna occupies in tbe causality formula : tan.bapac- 
cay4 upadana77i. 

" Samy. N." vol. ii, fol. gbe : samyojaniye ca bbikkbave dbamme 
desissami samyojanan ca, tam suTiatba. katame ca bbikkbave sami^ 
yojaniy^l dbamma kataman ca samyojanam. cakkbum bbikkbave 
samyojaniyo dbammo; yo tattba cbandarago tam tattba samyo- 
janam. — So on tbe otber organs of sense to tbe mano. Tben tbe 
Text goes on : upadS.niye ca bbikkbave dbamme desiss£imi upa- 
dUnan ca, tam suwatba. Tbere follows exactly tbe same detaiLf 

" Samy. N." vol. ii, fol. na. It is related tbat Sakka Devana- 
minda puts tbe question : ko nu kbo kbante betu ko paccayo yenam 
idb' ekacce satta dif ^^eva dbamme no parinibbayanti, ko pana bbante 
betu ko paccayo yenam idbekacce satt^ di^^Aeva dbamme parinib- 
bayantiti. — Tbe answer runs: santi kbo Devanaminda cakkbu- 
vinneyy^ rup4 itthA kanta manapa piyarupa kamopasambita 
rajaniya. tan ce bbikkbu abbinandati abbivadati ajjbosaya ti^^Aati 
tassa tam abbinandato abbivadato ajjbosS^ya ti^^Aato tamnissitam 
vinnanaT}^ boti tadupadanam : saupSidino Devanaminda bbikkbu no 

• So the Tumour MS. 

t Consequently the two words Up&d&na and Samyojana are synonymous. 
With this it is consistent, when on the one hand beings whirled along in the 
cycle of existence are designated as taTih&samyojana, on the other hand tanh& 
is termed an Up&d&na (in the quoted dialogue with Vaccha). Also the four 
Up&d&nas, so named kut* iKoxfiv (k&ma, ditt/ii, silabbata, attav&da), recur with 
tolerable exactness in tlie series of the ten Samyojana, where we meet the idefis, 
Mmar&ga, avijj&, silabbatapar&m&sa, and sakk&yaditt/ti. The last is considered 
to be identical with attav&da (Childers s. v. sakMya) and as a fact virtually 
comes to the same thing. 



UPADANA. 4:31 

parinibMyati — la — santi kho Devanaminda jivh^vifineyya rasa 
(etc., down to manovinneyyil dhamma). ayam kho Devanaminda 
hetn ayam paccayo yenam idh' ekacce satta di^^^eva dhamme na 
parinibMyanti. santi kho Dev&naminda cakkhnvinneyya rupa 
etc. ; tan ce bhikkhn nS,bhinandati nibhivadati na aj jhosaya ti^^^ati 
tassa tam anabhinandato anabhivadato no ajjhosaya ti^^^ato na 
tamnissitam yinn^inam hoti na tadnpad&nam; annpMano Devana- 
minda bhikkhn parinibbayati. 

" Ananjasapp^ya Snttanta " (" Majjh. Nikaya ") : 
. . . evam vntte ayasnul Anando bhagavantam etad avoca: 
idha bhante bhikkhn evam^ pa^ipanno hoti : no c' assa no ca me siya 
na bhavissati na me bhavissati yad atthi, jam bhutam tam paja- 
h^miti npekham pa^iabhati. parinibbayi)* nu kho so bhante 
bhikkhu 'ti? app etth' ekacco Ananda bhikkhn parinibbayeyya 
app etth' ekacco bhikkhn na parinibbayeyya 'ti. ko nn kho khanta 
hetn ko paccayo yena app etth' ekacco bhikkhn parinibbayeyya app 
etth' ekacco bhikkhn na parinibbayeyya 'ti. idh^nanda bhikkhn 
evaw paiipanno hoti : no c' assa . . . tarn pajahamiti npekham 
paOabhati. so tarn npekham abhinandati abhivadati ajjhosaya 
ti^^^ti, tassa tarn npekham abhinandato . . .f) na parinibbdyatiti. 
kaham pana so bhante bhikkhn npadiyatiti. nevasannanasanna- 
yatanam Anand4 'ti. np^ddnase^^am kira so bhante bhikkhn 
npadiyamano npS^diyatiti. npadanase^^Aam so Ananda bhikkhn 
npadiyamano npMiyati ; npadanase^^^m h'etam Ananda yad idam 
ue vasannansisannayatanam. ;^ 

" Pancattaya Snttanta " (" Majjh. N."). Of a " ekacco samano v& 
brS,hma7io va" it is said: "santo 'ham asmi nibbnto 'ham asmi 
annpadano 'ham asmiti samannpassati." Of this the Tathagata 
says : addha ayam ayasm^l nibb^nam sapp^yan neva pa^padam 
abhivadati, atha ca pannyam bhavam samano va brslbmano v^ pnb- 
bantanndi^^Aim va np^diyanulno npddiyati aparant&nndi^^im v4 np. 

* Probably the Adj. parinibb&yl should be placed here, which we have in 
antar&parinibb&yi, etc. 

t As above, p. 480. 

X Now follows in exactly corresponding fashion the opposite case, where a 
Bhikkhn **tam npekham nS.bhinandati ;" anup&d&no Ananda bhikkhu pari- 
nibb&yati. 



432 SOME MATTERS OF BUDDHIST DOOMATIO. 

up. Mmasannojanam* Yk np. np. payivekani y& pttim up. up. 
nirsLmisam vd. snkham up. np. adukkliamasTikham v^ vedanam up. 
up. ; yan ca kho ayam kjeojnk santo 'ham asmi nibMno (sic) 'ham 
asmi anup^ddno 'ham asmiti samanupassati tad ap' imassa bhoto 
samanabr^hmanassa upM^am akkh&yati. 

From the " Rathavinita Sutta" (^'Majjh. Nik.") : kimatthafl carah* 
&yuso bhagavati brahmacariyam vussatiti. anupS^parinibb^na- 
ttham kho bhagavati brahmacariyam vussatiti. kim nu kho S>vuso 
silavisuddhi anupS^d^parinibbanan ti. no h' idam ^tuso. kim 
pan&vuso cittavisnddhi — di^^Mvisuddhi — kankhavitarariavisuddhi 
— maggSmaggaiia^iadassanavisuddhi — ^patipadananadassanavisuddhi 
anupMsLparinibbSnan ti. no h' idam ^vuso. kin nu kho ^yuso 
Mnadassanavisuddhi anupadaparinibbanan ti. no h' idam S>vuso. 
kim pan&vuso annatra imehi dhammehi anupS^parinibbanan ti. no 
h' idam S.yuso. . . . yathakatham panavuso imassa bhS.sitassa 
attho da^^Aabbo 'ti. silayisuddhim ce avuso bhagava anupadapa- 
rinibbslnam pannapessa saupad^nam yeva samanam anupadapa- 
rinibbanam pannapessa. di^^Mvisuddhim . . . naTiadassanavi- 
suddhim ce avuso bhagavll anupMaparinibbanaTTi pannapessa 
saupadanam yeva samanam anupadaparinibb^nam pannapessa. 
annatran ca* avuso imehi dhammehi anup^aparinibbanam abha- 
vissa, puthujjano parinibbayeyya, puthujjano ^vuso annatra imehi 
dhammehi. — Then follows the comparison of the journey of the 
king Pasenadi from Savatthi to Saketa ; he has relays (rathavinita) 
lying between the two towns and arrives "sattamena rathavinitena " 
at this palace in Saketa. Evam eva kho ^vuso silavisuddhi yavad 
eva cittavisuddhattham . . . natiadassanavisuddhi yavad eva 
anupS.daparinibbanattham. anupadaparinibbanattham kho avuso 
bhagavati brahmacariyam vussatiti. 

Buddha vamsa : nibbayi anupadano yath' agg' upadanasamkhayL 

Cf. also " Dhammap." v. 89 ; " Mahavagga," v, 1, 24 seq- 
Bumouf, " Intr." p. 495 seq., and so on. 

Before we proceed to give evidences bearing on the expressions 

* K&masauiiojan&nam the Tumour MS., which I follow in quoting this 
passage. 

t So the Turnour MS. 



UPADANA. 433 

Saupadisesa and Anupadisesa, we shall attempt to briefly point ont 
the dogmatic signification of Upadana and TJpadhi. These ideas 
are almost synonymous. The attainment or non-attainment of 
Nirvaria, victory or defeat in the straggle against suflfering is made 
dependent npon the presence or non-presence of Upadana and qnite 
as much so of Upadhi. In one of the above cited passages of the 
Samynttaka Nikaya there is given a series of members which are 
joined together by causal nexus : From Tawha comes Upadhi, from 
Upadhi comes old age, death, suffering. In exactly the same way 
the well-known formula of the twelve Nidanas makes Upadana 
come from Tawha, and from Upadana (through a few middle links) 
old age, death, suffering. The difference between Upadhi and 
Upadana is further diminished, when we remember that beside 
the Upadhi of the Buddhist texts there occurs in the philosophic 
Sanscrit texts an Upadhi (" Colebroke Misc. Ess." I^, 308 etc.) and 
also the participle Upahita.* Upa-dha signifies " to lay one thing 
on another, to give it a support," thus, of anything which would so 
to speak float in the air or fly about, to chain it to reality by a 
substratum, which is given to it to localize it. This substratum is 
exactly Upadhi. Upa-da or Upa-da (middle), on the other hand, is 
"to lay hold of anything, to cling to anything," as the flame catches 
the fuel ; this fuel, or that laid hold of by a being, to which it 
clings, as well as the act of this catching, is Upadana. It is clear, 
that in this way Upadhi and Upadana, although the ideas underlying 
them differ, must still acquire significations for Buddhist ter- 
minology, which cover each other or at least very nearly touch. 

We shall now treat of the third of these closely connected ideas, 
that of Upadi, which is known only in the compounds Sopadisesa 
and Anupadisesa. 

" Itivuttaka," fol. kau of the Phayre MS. : vuttam h' etam 
bhagavata vuttam arahata 'ti me sutam. dve 'ma bhikkhave 
nibbanadhatuyo. katama dve. saupadisesa ca nibbanadhatu 
anupadisesa ca nibbanadhsitu. katama ca bhikkhave saupadisesa 
nibbanadhatu ? idha bhikkhave bhikkhu araham hoti khiwasavo 

* It is characteristic in this connection, that in Sanscrit upadhi and up&dhi 
are exactly equivalent in the sense of ** deceit." 

28 



434 SOME MATTERS OF BUDDHIST DOGMATIC. 

vusitava katakarariiyo ohitabharo anuppattasadttho* parikkhinab- 
liaTasa7?iyojaiio Bammadannavimntio. tassa ti/^^ant' exa pane* 
indriyani yesar?! avigbatatta man^pa^H' paccannbboti sukbadukkbaTTz* 
pafisa772.vediyati. tassa kbo rslgakkbayo dosakkhayo mobakkbayo. 
aya77i vaccati bbikkbave sanp^isesS. nibbdnadbata. katama ca 
•bbikkbave anupadisesa nibbanadbatu ? idba bbikkbave bbikkbu 
arabam boti .... sammadannavimntto. tassa idb' eva bbik- 
kbave vedayitanif anabbinanditani sitibbaTissanti. aya?n. vuccati 
bbikkbave anupadisesa nibbanadbatu. ima kbo bbikkbave dve 
nibbanadbatuyo 'ti. etam attbam bbagava avoca. tattb' etam 
dti vuccati : — 

dve ima cakkbumata pakasita nibbanadbatu^ anissitena 

t^dina : 
eka bi dbatu idba di^f/rndbammika saupadisesa bbavanetti- 

samkbaya, 
anupadisesa pana samparayika yambi nirujjbanti bbavani 

sabbaso. | 
ye etad annaya parawi§ asa?nkbata?/i. vimutticitta|| bbavanet- 

tisamkbaygi 
te dbamma saradbikamniakkbarelf yatba pabamsu te sab. 

babbavanitadino 'ti. 



ayawi pi attbo vutto bbagavat4 iti me sutan ti. 

It is clear, tbat tbe cbapter of tbe Itivuttaka bere given supports 
tbrougbout tbe already referred to tbeory of Cbilders. He wbp 
attains boliness, attains tbe Nirvana ; this is, as long as bis eartbly 
life still continues, saupadisesa; tbe body, tbe sense-perceptions, 
and so on, are still present. Wben tbese also vanish, in tbe death 
of tbe saint, that is, bis being thereby enters on the anupadisesa 
nibbanadbatu.* 

• anuppattapadatto the MS. t devayitani the MS. 

♦ So the MS. § saram the MS. 
': Perhaps vimuttacitt^ as an emendation. 

^.f I cannot venture an emendation without further MS. materials. Apparently, 
considering the interchange of r and y so frequent in Burmese MSS., we should 
read kammakkhayo. 

* So also the commentary on the *' Dhammapada," p. 278 (cf. p. 196). 



upAdisesa. 4?;5 

It must be in the highest degree astonishing that the limit 
between sanpadisesa and anup^disesa is here removed to a wholly 
different place from the limit between sanpadana and annpadana, 
or between the state of the nirupadhi and the burdened with npadhi. 
In the two last named cases we had to do with the ethical 
opposition of the internally bound and the internally free ; in 
the case now before ns, on the other hand, we conld only have, 
according to the view of Childers and the passage quoted from 
the Itivuttaka, to do with the physical opposition of the internally 
free, whose external life still continues, and the internally 
free, whose external life has ceased. It is really very hard to 
bejieve that, of the three pairs of ideas which all belong to the 
iNTirvana doctrine, and which at first sight present an appearance 
of so close a parallelism, the third should actually have in view 
a point so thoroughly different from the first two, that the 
" anupadisesa nibbanadh^tu " should imply something wholly 
different from " anupadaya cittam vimucci" or " anupadhisam- 
khaye vimutto." 

Notwithstanding, I should not venture to build only on con- 
siderations of this kind the supposition, that the meaning clearly 
and expressly given in the Itivuttaka to sa- and anupadisesa 
does not express the true or the original doctrine of Buddhism : 
yet the canonical texts themselves give us further points, which 
strengthen the scruples we entertain against the testimony of the 
Itivuttaka. 

In the " Satipaf^Mnasutta *' ("Majjh. N.") we read: yo hi koci 
bhikkhave bhikkhu ime cattaro satipa^^/^ane eva?^. bhaveyya satta 
vassani* tassa dvinnam phalana7?^ annatara7?i phalam pa^ikankha: 
di^^^eva dhamme anna sati va upadisese anagdmita. 

As is known, he who is born again as Anagami, has still a small 
residue of sinful nature in him, from which to purify himself in the 
celestial existence, upon which he enters, is allotted to him. In 
the passage we have quoted, then, the Sanpadisesa is not, as in the 
Itivuttaka, he who is pure from sins, who remains still in the 
earthly state^ but he who is burdened with a residuum of sin, 

* It is afterwards stated that a still shorter time suffices. 

28* 



43(5 SOME MATTERS OF BUDDHIST DOGMATIC 

who is re-bom into a deified state. And the fully pure, still 
lingering on earth " diftheys, dhamme " is in one passage exactly 
the person in whom an Upddisesa is no longer present. Thns 
Upadisesa here has not the physical meaning of a residnnm of 
earthly existence, but the ethical meaning of a residuum of impurity, 
the same signification which we have found in Upadana and 
Upadhi. 

To the passage already quoted we add a proof, which we take 
from the " Vaiigisa Sutta " (Nigrodhakappa Sutta), a text* in- 
cluded in the " Sutta Nipata." This Sutta begins : Evam me sutam. 
eka7n. samayam bhagava A?aviya7>i viharati AggaZave cetiye. tena 
kho pana samayena ayasmato Vangisassa upajjhayo Nigrodhakappo 
nama thero AggaZave cetiye aciraparinibbuto hoti. atha kho 
Ayasmato Vangisassa rahogatassa pa^sallinassa evam cetaso parivi- 
takko udapadi : parinibbuto nu kho me upajjhayo udahu no pari- 
nibbuto *ti.t — Buddha is asked : Has the Brahmacariyam, in 
which he has lived, brought him any advantage? "Nibbayi 
so adu saupadiseso ; yatha vimutto ahu tarn surM)ma.'* And 
Buddha replies : 

Acchecchi tariham idha namarupe 'ti bhagava, tawhayaj sotam 

digharattanusayitam 
atari jatimarar^m asesam ice abravi bhagava pancase^^Ao. 

Here also the alternative is put in a way which does not har- 
monize with Childers*s conception. ** Has he entered into Nirvana 
or is he Saupadisesa ?" Buddha is asked concerning a monk whose 
death had been announced. Saupadisesa must consequently be he, 
who, on account of a not yet complete freedom from sinful nature, 
cannot yet become partaker of the Nirvatia. 

Finally decisive are the data, which the Sunakkhatta Suttanta 
(" Majjhima Nikaya'') supplies. It uses the expression, in the eluci- 

* See Fausboll's Translation of the " Sutta Nip&ta," p. 57 seq. Cf. also the 
" Kalahavivadasutta," v, 15 (ibidem, p. 167). 

t I.e., as also the further detail clearly shows : the fact that Nigrodhakappa 
died, is known to him, but he does not know whether he is still liable to re-birth 

or not. 

I So clearly the MS. of the Phayre collection consulted by me. Fausboll 
•' Kanha's {i.e., Mdra's) stream." 



UPADI8ESA. 437 

dation of which we are engaged, in reference to conditions of 
material life. A man, it is said in a parable, is wounded with a 
poisoned arrow. A physician treats his wonnd, " apaneyya visa- 
dosam sanpadisesam* anupadiseso ti mannamano." He therefore 
treats the poison as having been overcome, while really a remnant 
of the poisonous stuff is still present in the patient. In opposition 
to this is placed a second case, where the danger has been fully 
overcome : " apaneyya visadosam anupadisesam anupadiseso ti 
janamano." The first patient thinks himself cured, lives carelessly, 
and so falls a victim to his wound. The second patient lives care- 
fully and makes a complete recovery. While then the spiritual 
meaning of this parable is being unfolded, the expression nirupadhi 
occurs in place of the expression anupadiseso. Of the monk who 
perseveres successfully, to whom the second of the two patients is 
compared, it is said : so vata Sunakkhatta bhikkhu chasu phassaya- 
tanesu samvutakari upadhi dukkhassa mulan ti iti viditva nirupadhi 
upadhisamkhaye vimutto upadhismim va kayam upasamharissati 
cittam va anuppadassatif : n'etam thsmsim vijjati. — Thus it is 
apparent that here also saupadisesa and anupadisesa point to 
the presence or absence of a last remnant of deadly peril in a 
spiritual sense, and the passage establishes at the same time 
the identity of the upadi contained in this word with the word 
upadhi. Now, as is well known, the anupadisesa of the Pali in the 
northern Buddhist texts corresponds with anupadhi9esha or nim- 
padhi9esha (Bumouf, **Intr." 690). In the same way reads a 
Sanscritified Singhalese inscription of the twelfth cent. A.n. (" Ind. 
Antiquary," 1877, p. 326) : nirupadhi9eshanirvvawadhatuwen. We 
shall from these considerations have no scruple in declaring the 
problematic upadi to be only a spelling of the word upadhi peculiar 
to the Pali — probably we should rather say, peculiar to our modem 
Pali manuscripts. The origin of this orthography, if we consider 
the significant fact that this upadi occurs only in connection with 
sesa, is not hard to account for. As the Pali manuscripts write the 
name of the god Skanda Khandha obviously under the influence 
of Khandha = Sansk. skandha, or as the Sansk. smnti is written 

* Visadosa upSxlisese the MS. f Anuppadassanti the MS. 



M 



438 SOME MATTERS OF BVDDHI8T DOGMATIC. 

sammnti in the Pali, tuider the influence of the word sammnti 
"nomination," so, it appears to me, the manuscript tradition of the 
Pali has caused the word anupadhisesa to resemble the word 
sa?/ighadisesa so very familiar to all copyists of sacred texts, 
probably by the co-operation of the influence of anupadaya, and 
thus has arisen the orthography anupadisesa. 

That, if this supposition be correct, then also the signification of 
sa- and anupadisesa, porresponding to that of upadhi, must be : 
" one with whom there is, or is not, respectively, still present a 
remnant of earthly, sinful nature," is self -apparent. How it has 
come to pass that a so thoroughly different meaning has been given 
to both terms in the Itivuttaka, can naturally not be explained 
otherwise than by conjecture. It appears to me, that the expres- 
sion anupadisesa nibbanadhatu, which contains in fact a tautology 
— for the nibbanadhatu implies the absence of upadhi — might by 
its form easily suggest to a misinformed mind the opposition of a 
saupadisesa nibbanadhatu, while the word saupadisesa, rightly com- 
prehended, as we have pointed out from the Satipa^^Aana Sutta and 
the Yangisa Sutta, excludes the idea of Nirvaria. But if once this 
adjective had been employed regarding the nibbanadhatu by an 
error like that we have supposed, if once the opposition of an 
anupadisesa and a saupadisesa nibbanadhatu had been set up, then 
it was scarcely possible to attach a more passable meaning to these 
words, than that given to them in the Itivuttaka. 

The preceding explanation regarding th© expressions, in which 
the main difl&culty of the Nirvana terminology lies, has already 
given us occasion to quote a series of the passages of the canonical 
texts relevant to this doctrine. We shall now proceed to set forth 
in the Pali text the more essential of the materials upon which our 
previously expounded (antea, pp. 267 seq.) view of the Nirvana 
doctrine rests, and therewith also some passages which we have 
given above in translation.* 

In the " Samyuttaka Nikaya " there comes after the above quoted 
(p. 429) passage on the conversation of Buddha with Vacchagotta 

Keference may here also be made to the communication of Dr. O. Frank- 
iurter, in the " Joum. E. Asiatic Soc," Oct. 1880. 



vpAdisesa. 



439 



paribbajaka, the followiug (cf. antea, p. 2?2 seq.) : Atha kio 
Vacchftgotto paribbajako yena bliagavit ten' iipasambami, npasaut- 
kamitv^ bbagayatfl, Baddhim sammodi, sammodanijatn katUaiit 
S^ranijam vitiEaretvS ekamantam nisidi, ekamantam nisinno Vaccha- 
gotto paribbijako bbagavantam etad avoca : kim. iin kho blio 
Gotama atth' atia 'ti. evani vutte lihRgavii tuiibi aboai. kim pana 
bho Gotama n' atth' afcta 'ti. dutiyam pi kho bhagava tuiihi ahosi, 
atba kho Vaccbagotto parjbbAjako ntthi,yks3,ni pakkami. atha klio 
Sjaamd Anando acirapakkante Vacchagotte paribbfLjake bhaga- 
vantani etad avoca : kim. nn kbo bbante bhagavi Vacchagottassa 
pat'ibbdjakaEsa paahavn ■puttha na byak^tti. ahau c' Ananda 
Vacchagottassa paribbajakasaa atth' RttA 'ti jmtlho samano atth' 
atti 'ti bydkareyyani, ye te Ananda samanabrahmajBi sassatavada 
tesam etaim Baddham abbavissati*. ahau c' Anauda Vacchagottassa 
parribbajakassa n' attb' att^ 'ti pxitllia samano n' atth' 'attd 'ti 
'byakareyyam, ye to Ananda eamariabrabmaizA uccbedavad^ tcsain 
etamf abhavigsa. ahaa c' Ananda Yaccbagottassa . . . atth' attii 
'ti byakareyyafji, api nu me tawi Ananda annlomani abhavissai 
flilnassa up/tdiLyat aabbo dhammma anattix 'ti. no h' etam bhante. 
ahan c' Ananda . , . n'atth' attfi, 'ti hyakareyyam, sammiiZ/taBsa 
Ananda Vacchagottassa paribbajakaBsabhlyyosammohSyaabbaviBBa 
ahnrd. me nanu pubbe att^ so etarahi n'atthtti. 

" Samynttaka Mikilya," voL ii, fol. vo. seq. (of. antea, p. 278 
aeq.) : 

Ek&m samayam bbagar^ Savatthiyam vibarati JctaTan<) AnAtba 
pi)iJikassa arame. tena kho pana samayena KbemA bhikkhuni 
Koaalesu carikam caranumi antar4 ca SilYafthim antarii ca SiLkctam 
Toraitavatthnsmim viLsam npagata boti. atha kho r^jil Fasenadi 
Kosalo Siiketa Savatthini gacchanto antar^ ca S^ketam antard ca 
SATatthim ToraHavatthnsraijii ukarattivasani npagaccbi. atha kho 
rijA Pasenadi Kosalo aniiatBram pnrisam amantesi : ebi tvam ambho 
purisa Toraiiavattbusmiiii tatbarupa?ii samaiiani vk brabmaHavii vi 
jiLaa yam aham ajja payirupdseyyan ti. ovani dev& 'ti kho so pnriho 



■ So the MS. ; lege nhhsTiaaa, On saddhftm cf. Abhidhto, 1147. 

t Hers Dndoubtedlf sadiiham is to be inserted. { Lege upplld jy a. 



440 SOME MATTERS OF BUDDHIST DOGMATIC. 

Tanno Pasenadissa Kosalassa patisntvll kevalakappam Toranayattham 
ahintZanto lulddasa tatharupam samanam va brahmanam yk jwii 
T&jdr Pasenadi Kosalo payimpS.seyya. addasa kho [so] pnriso 
Khemam bhikkhnnim Toranayatthnsmini v^sam npagatam, disv^na 
yena rk\k Pasenadi Kosalo ten' npasamkami, npasamkamitva rajanam 
Pasenadikosalam etad avoca : n' atthi kho deva ToranavatihiLsmim 
tatharupo samano v& brd,]imano va yam devo paimpaseyya, attlii ca 
kho deva Kbema nama bhikkhnni tassa bhagavato saviklL arahato 
sammasambnddhassa, tassa kho pana ayyaya eyam kalyarK) kitti- 
saddo abbhnggato pancZita viyatta medh^vi bahnsutta cittakathi 
kalyanapa/ibh2ln& 'ti, tarn devo payimp^satu 'ti. atha kho raja 
Pasenadi Kosalo yena Khema bhikkhuni ten' npasamkami, npasam- 
kamitva Khema?/! bhikkonim abhivadetva ekamantam nisidi. eka- 
mantam nisinno kho r^ja Pasenadi Kosalo Khemam bhikkhnnim 
etad avoca : kim nn kho ayye hoti tathagato param marana 'ti. 
abyakatam kho etawi maharaja bhagavata hoti tathagato param 
mara?2a 'ti. kim pan' ayye na hoti tathagato param mararia 'ti. 
etam pi kho maharaja abylikatam bhagavata na hoti tathagato 
param marana ti. ki??! nn kho ayye hoti ca na ca hoti tathagato 
param marawa 'ti. abyakatam kho etam maharaja bhagavata . . . 
kim pan' ayye n' eva hoti na na hoti tathagato param marana 'ti. 
etam pi kho maharaja abyakatam bhagavata . . . The king now 
asks why she has given no other answer to all his questions, and 
goes on : ko nn kho ayye hetn ko paccayo yena tam abyakatam 
bhagavata 'ti. tena hi maharlija tan nev' ettha patipucchissami, 
yatha te khameyya tatha nam byakareyyasi. tam kim mannasi 
maharaja, atthe te koci ganako va mnddiko va samkhayako va yo 
pahoti Grangaya valukam ganetum ettaka valnka iti va ettakan^ 
valnkasatani ita va ettakani valnkasahassani iti va ettakani valnka- 
satasahassani iti va 'ti. no h' etam ayye. atthi pana te koci ganako 
va mnddiko va samkhayako va yo pahoti mahasamndde ndakam 
ganetnm ettakani ndakaZhakani iti va . . . ettakani ndakaZha- 
kasatasahassani iti va 'ti. no h' etam ayye. tam kissa hetn. 
mahasamnddo gambhiro appameyyo dnppariyogaho 'ti. evam eva 
kho maharaja yena rupena tathagatam pannapayamano pannapeyya 
tam rupam tathagatassa pahinam ncchinnamulam talavatthukatam 



THE NIBVA1S± 441 

anabhavam katam* ayatim annppadadhammam. rupasamkhaya 
vinmtto kho maharaja tathagato gambhiro appameyyo duppari- 
jogaho seyyathapi mahasamuddo. hoti tathagato param marana 
'ti pi na npeti, na hoti t. p. m. 'ti pi na npeti, hoti ca na ca hoti 
t. p. m. 'ti pi na npeti, n'eva hoti*na na hoti t. p. m. 'ti pi na npeti. 
jaya vedanaya . . . yaya sannaya . . . yehi samkharehi 
. . . yena vinnariena tathagatam pannapayamano pannapeyya 
. . . ti pi na npetiti. atho kho raja Pasenadi Kosalo Khemaya 
bhikkhuniya bhasitam abhinanditva anumoditva n^^Myasana Khe- 
mam bhikkhnnim abhivadetva padakkhiriam katva pakkami. The 
text then further relates how the king later on put the same 
questions to Buddha himself, and obtained from him the same 
answers word for word as the nun Elhema had given him. 

" Samynttaka Nikaya," vol. i, fol. de (cf . antea, p. 281 seq.) : 
tena kho pana samayena Yamakassa nama bhikkhuno evarupam 
papakam di^^^igatam nppannam hoti : tathaham bhagavata dham- 
mam desitam ajanami yatha khiwasavo bhikkhn kayassa bheda 
ucchijjati vinassati na hoti param maratia 'ti. (Sariputta resolves 
to put the misbeliever on the right track and says to him :) tarn 
kim mannasi avuso Yamaka rupam niccam va aniccam va 'ti. 
aniccam avusof . . . tarn kim mannasi avuso Yamaka rupam 
tathagato 'ti samanupassasiti. no h'etam avuso. vedanam tatha- 
gato 'ti samanupassasiti . . . tam kim mannasi avuso Yamaka 
rupasmim tathagato 'ti samanupassasiti. no h' etam avuso. 
annatra rupa tathagato 'ti samanupassasiti. no h' etam avuso. J 
tam kim mannasi avuso Yamaka rupam vedanam sannam samkhare 
vinnanam tathagato 'ri samanupassasiti. no h' etam avuso. tam 
kim mannasi avuso Yamaku ayam so arupi avedano asanni asam- 
kharo avinnarw) tathagato 'ti samanupassasiti. no h' etam avuso. 
ettha ca te avuso Yamaka di^^eva dhamme saccato te tato 
tathagato anupalabbhiyamano. kallam nu te tam veyyakarawam 
tathaham bhagavata dhammam desitam ajanami . . . na hoti 



* Lege gatam. 

t The same then regarding the other Ehandas, and the usual conclusions 
drawn therefrom as in the " Mah&vagga," i, 6, 42-46. 
{ Then similarly : vedan&ya, annatra vedan&ya, &c. 



442 SOME MATTERS OF BVBDHIST DOGMATIC, 

param marawd 'ti. ahn kho me ta?7i dvnso Sdriputta pubbe avid- 
dasano papakam ditthigatsLm, id&m ca pan^yasmato Sariputtassa 
dhaminadesanaT^t satvd tarn c' cva papaka?^ ditthig&tabm pahinam 
dhammo ca me abbisamito. saco ta,m dvnso Yamaka emim 
puccbeyyu???, yo so avnso Yamaka bhikkbu arabam kbrnjisavo 
so kdyassa bbed^ param maranil kim botiti : evam puf^Ao tvQ>vi 
araso Yamaka kinti by^areyydsiti. sace ma7?i avnso evam 
puccbeyymM, yo so ... kim botiti, evam -pxxttho abam avnso 
evam byakareyyam : rupawi kbo avnso aniccam, yad annicam t&vi 
dnkkbaiw, y&m dnkkba??i tawi nimddbam tad attbamga t&m, ve- 
dana, saniia, samkbara, vinnana7>i aniccam . . . attbawigatan ti. 
evam ipattho abam avnso evam byakareyyan ti sadbn sadbn avnso 
Yamaka. 

"Udana," fol. gban (Pbayre MS., cf. antea, p. 283): . . . 
imai)i ndana7>i ndanesi : attbi bbikkbave tad ayatanam yattba 
n*eva patbavi na apo na tejo na vayo na akasanancayatanam na 
vinna?ianaiicayatanam. na akincaiinayatana^n. na nevasannana- 
saiinayatanam nsLyab7n loko no paraloko nbdo candimasnriya, tam 
aba??i< bbikkbave n^eva ayatim Vadami na gatim na ^^itim na 
npapattim : appati^^/iam apavattar?^ anaramma?iam eva ta?w., es* 
ev* anto dnkkbassa 'ti.* 

Ibid. fol. gban' (^" Itivnttaka," fol. kan ; antea, p. 283) : attbi 
bbikkbave ajatam abbutam akata^n. asamk batam. no ce tsLvi. 
bbikkbave abbavissa ajatam . . . asamkbatam na yidba jatassa 
bbutassa katassa samkbatassa nissara7ia77i pannayetba. yasma ca 
kbo bbikkbave attbi ajatam . . . tasma jatassa . . . nissara?ia7?2 
pannayatiti. 

Ibid. fol. gban' — gba?n: nissitassa ca calitam, anissitassa cali- 
iam n' attbi, calite asati passadbi, passaddbiya sati rati na boti, 
ratiya asati agatigati na boti, %atigatiya asati cntnpapato na boti, 
cntiipapate asati n' ev' idba na hnram na nbbayamantare. es' ev* 
anto dnkkbassa 'ti. 

" Angnttara Nikaya " (Pbayre MS.), vol. i, fol. nu : cattaro 'me 

* It is well here to bear in mind the quite similar mode of expression of 
the Jainas. " Jinacaritra," 16 : sivam ayalam aruyam aziamtam akkhayam 
aw^bS^ham apunar&vatti-siddhi-gai-nSiuadheyam thkn&m. 



THE NIRVANA. 443^ 

bhikkhave puggala santo samvijjamana lokasniim. katame cattaro ? 
idha bhikkhave ekacco pnggalo di^^^eva dhamme sasamkharapari- 
nibbayi hoti, idha pana bhikkhave ekacco puggalo kayassa bheda 
sasamkharaparinibbayi hoti, idha pana bhikkhave ekacco puggalo 
dittheYB, dhamme asamkharaparinibbayi hoti, idha pana bhikkhave^ 
ekacco puggalo kayassa bheda asamkharaparinibbayi hoti. kathafi. 
ca bhikkhave ekacco puggalo di^^^eva dhamme sasamkharaparinib- 
bayi hoti ? idha bhikkhave bhikkhu asubhanupassi kaye viharati 
ahare pa^ikulassaiini sabbaloke anabhiratisaniii sabbasam kharesu 
aniccanupassi, marariasanna kho pan' assa ajjhattam supati^^Mta 
hoti. so imani panca sekhabalani upanissaya viharati saddhabalam 
hiribalam ottappabalam viriyabalam, pannabalam, tass* imani pane' 
indriyani adhimattani patubhavanti saddhindriyam viriyin driya?^. 
satindriyam samadhindriyam pannindriyam. so imesam pancanna7?^ 
indriyanam adhimattatta sasar>ikharaparinibbayi hoti. evam kho 
khikkhave puggalo di^^^eva dhamme sasa77ikharaparinibbayi hoti. 
kathan ca bhikkhave ekacco puggalo kayassa bheda sasamkhara- 
parinibbayi hoti ? idha bhikkhave bhikkhu asubhanupassi (&C.- 
as above, for adhimattani, adhimattatta read muduni, mudutta). 
kathan ca bhikkhave ekacco puggalo dittheysb dhamme asamkhara- 
parinibbayi hoti ? idha bhikkhave bhikkhu* vivicc' eva kamehi 
-pa- pa^^majjhanam .... cattuthawi jhana?n. upasampajja 
viharati. so imani panca sekhabalani (&c. as above, then corre- 
sponding to the fourth case, but instead of adhimattani read 
muduni). ime kho bhikkhave cattaro puggala santo samvijjamana 
lokasmin ti. 

" AnguttaraNikaya," Navanipata, vol. iii, fol. nu : ekam samayam 
ayasma Sariputto B»ajagahe viharati YeZuvane Kalandakanivape. 
tatra kho ayasma Sariputto bhikkhu amantesi : sukhai??- idam avuso 
nibbanan ti. evam vutte ayasma Udayi ayasmantam Sariputtam 
etad avoca : kim pan' ettha avuso Sariputta sukham yad ettha n' 
atthi vedayitan ti ? etad eva khv etthavuso sukham yad ettha n' 
atthi vedayitam. pane' ime avuso kamagur^a. katame panca?" 
cakkhuvinneya rupa i^^^a kanta manapa piyrupa satarupa kamu- 
pasanhita rajaniya, sotavineyy^ sadda, . . . ime kho avuso 
panca kamaguna. jami kho avuso ime panca kamaguTie paficca. 



444 SOME MATTERS OF BUDDHIST DOGMATIC, 

nppajjati sukhai?!, somanassam idam ynccat' ItyuBO kamasuklutni. 
idhaimso bbikkhu vivicc' eva kdmelii -pa- pa^^mam jMnam npa- 
sampajja vibarati, tass ce kvuBO bhikklmiio imin& yibd*rena vibarato 
kslmasabagata sanM manasik^rsi samudAcaranti sv 4ssa boii abadbo. 
seyyatbapi dvuso snkbino dnkkbam uppajjeyya y&vad eva &badbaya, 
evam ev' assa te kamas'abagata sanna manasikSr^ samndacaranti, sv 
assa boti 4badbo. jo kbo panstynso llb&dbo dnkkbam. idam vnttaTn' 
bbagavata. iminapi kbo etam S^yiuo pariyayena veditabbam yatba 
sukbam nibbanam. pnna ca param avuso bbikkbu vitakkavicaranam 
dutiyam jhknsbin npasampajja vibarati. tassa ce avnso 
bbikkbrmo imina vibarena vibarato vitakkasabagata sanna manasi- 
kara samndacaranti (see as above). In tbe tbird Jbana, tbe 
disturbing element is described as pitisabagat^ sanna, in tbe f onrtb 
npekbasnkbasabagata sanna. Tbe exposition tben proceeds in tbe 
analogous way also tbrongb tbe bigbest stages of abstraction. 

As in tbe two last quoted passages tbe term nibbana is used of 
tbe bappy condition of bim wbo bas attained tbe Jbana, so also 
tbis occurs in tbe following passage : 

" Ang. Nikaya," loc. cit, fol. ^/ia : 

sandii^/iikam nibbanam sandi^^Mkam nibbanan ti ^vuso vuccati. 
kittavata nu kbo avuso sandii^^ikam nibbanam vuttam bbagavata 
'ti ? idbavuso bbikkbu vivicc* eva kamebi -pa- pa^Aamam jbanam 
npasampajja vibareti. ettbapi kbo avuso sandi^^Mkam nibbanam 
vuttam bbagavata pariyayena. (Similarly of tbe following Jbanas 
-and tbe stages of bigber ecstasy. Finally :) puna ca param avuse 
bbikkbu sabbaso nevasannanasannayatanam samatikkamma sanna- 
vedayitanirodbam npasampajja vibarati panMya c'assa disva ^sava 
parikkbiria bonti. ettavata kbo avuso sandi^^Mkam nibbanam vut- 
tam bbagavata nippariyayena 'ti.* Tben follows a series of exactly 
similar passages : nibbanam nibbanan ti avuso vuccati -pa- parinib- 
banam parinibbanan ti, tadanganibbanam tadanganibbanan ti, di^^^a- 
^bammanibbanan di^^Aadbammanib^nan ti avuso vuccati . . . 
vuttam bbagavata nippariyayena 'ti. 

Tbe fact tbat bere tbe Parinibbana is treated as exactly equal 

* Here pariyayena (cf. " Dipavamsa," 5, 34) means " in metaphorical sense,' 
nippariyayena, " without metaphor, in the exact sense." 



NIBBANA and PABINIBBANA—NAMABt^PA. 445 

with the nibbana and the di^^Aadhammanibbana, as well as the fact 
that in one of the earlier quoted passages the " di^^Aeva dhamme 
sasamkharaparinibbaya " is spoken of, gives me occasion to here 
refer to the theory advanced by Dr. Rhys Davids, according to 
which nibbana and parinibbana are as a rule so used differently, 
that the former denotes arhatship, the latter the end of the saint, 
his disappearance from the world of the transitory. As a fact the 
usage of the canonical texts follows, on the whole, the rule laid 
down by Davids. Yet it seems to me, that here we have to do only 
with a tendency of the usage of speech, which is liable to exceptions, 
in the same way as usage fluctuates between Buddha and Sam- 
buddha, Paccekabuddha and Paccekasambuddha. Thus, the word 
parinibbuta is used of the saint already during his earthly life,. 
"Dhp." V, 89, and " Samyutta Nikaya," vol. ii, fol. ja: 

kummo va angani sake kapale samodaham bhikkhu manovitakke 
anissito annamannam apothamano parinibbuto na upavadeyya kinci 

and vice versa nibbuta is also occasionally used of the saint entering 
into the hereafter. Anuruddha says (" Theragatha," fol. gu) : 

Yajjinam YeZuvagame aham jivitasamkhaya 
he^^Aato YeZugumbasmim nibbayissam anasavo. 

Bakkulattherassa-Acchariyabahutasutta ("Majjh. Nikaya") : atha 
kho &yasma Bakkulo aparena samayena apapurawam adaya viharena 
viharam upasamkamitva evam aha : abhikkamathayasmanto abhik- 
kamathayasmanto, ajja me nibbanam bhavissatiti . . . atha kho 
ayasma Bakkulo majjhe bhikkhusamghassa nisinnako parinibbayi. 

Compare also the strophe of the Vimanavatthu, which is found 
quoted at " Dhp. Atth." p. 350. 



2. Namarupa. 

To the observations made in note 2, p. 23, regarding the terminus 
Namarupa, i.e, " Name and form," or " Name and corporeal form," 
I desire to here add a few of the more important passages of the 
texts. 

The expression Namarupa is known to have had its origin in tho 



446 NlMARtfPA, 

Brahmawa and Aranyaka period of Indian literature. In the name 
of beings the wisdom of those ages finds, as is natural, specially 
deep mysteries. Jaratkarava Artabh^ga says :* " Yajnavalkya ! 
what is that which does not forsake a man when he dies ?" And 
Yajnavalkya answers : " The name ! An infinite thing in truth is 
the name, infinite (innumerable) are all the Gods ; infinite fulness 
he attains thereby." Thus the name of beings or of things is repre- 
•scnted as a self-existing power beside their external form. Name 
^nd form are the two " monster powers " of the Brahma, by which 
it has got at the worlds or into the worlds. When the universe 
lay in chaotic confusion, by " name and form " clearness was created ; 
^therefore they say, when they wish to make a man knowable : "he 
is called so-and-so ; he looks so-and-so." ** In this this universe 
consists, inform and in name " — or, as it is said on another occasion : 
" A triad is this world : name, form, act."t 

The cessation of the individual being, the attainment of the 
everlasting goal presents itself as well to the Brahman as to the 
Buddhist method of thought and speech as the cessation of " name 
and form." He who has attained the highest wisdom, unites with . 
the universal spirit, " delivered from name and form, as the streams, 
the flowing streams, enter into rest in the sea, leaving namej and 
form behind ;" thus we read in the " Mu?i(Zakopanishad."§ And in 
the " Suttanipata "|| it is said : " What thou hast asked after, 
Ajita, that will I tell thee; where name and form cease without 
XI residuum : by the cessation of consciousness,** there that 
ceases." 

As regards the idea of " name " in this connection, it is to he 
understood in its literal meaning, when in the Mahanidana suttaft 



* " gat. Br." xiv, 6, 2, 11. 

t " gat. Br." xi, 2, 3, 3 fg. ; xiv, 4, 2, 15 ; 4, 4, 1 fg. Cf. the Nnsimha- 
tapaniya Upanishad, *' Ind. Studien," ix, 134. 

X It is clear, that here *' name " is to be taken quite in the literal sense, cf. 
**' Cullavagga," Ix, 1, 4. 

§ P. 322 of the edition in the "Bibl. India." 

II Fol. ghau' of the Phayre MS. ; Fausboll, p. 191. 

** I.e., the Nirvd7?a, cf. supra^ p. 266 seq. 

It P. 253, 255, ed. " Grimblot." 



NAMABUPA. 447 

the attainability of tlie form-world tlirongh the " contact by means 
of naming " is traced back to the existence of the " name- world," 
and when it is there said, " that the domain of naming, the domain 
of expression, the domain of manifestation," extends as far as 
"name and form together with conscionsness." As a rule, however, 
another meaning of " name " meets us in the Buddhist texts, so far 
as this idea appears in connection with that of form. Thus already 
in the " Sutta Pi^aka " (" Sammadi^fAi Suttanta " in the "Majjhima 
Nikaya," fol. khu of the Turnour MSS.)? where a reply is given 
to the question regarding the definition of Namarupa: vedana 
sanna ceten^ phasso manasikaro idam vuccat* avuso namarupam,* 
cattari ca mahabhutani catunnam ca mahabhutanam upadaya rupam 
idam vuccat' avuso rupam. — Similarly in the Abhidhamma texts. 
■** Vibhanga," fol. ci' (Phayre MS.) : tattha katamawi vinnana- 
paccaya namarupat?i ? atthi namam atthi rupam. tattha katamaTn^ 
namam ? vedanakkhandho sannakhandho samkhd,rakkhandho idam 
vuccati namam. tattha katamam rupam ? cattaro ca mahabhuta 
catunnam ca mahabhutanam upadaya rupam idam vuccati rupam 
iti' idan ca namawi idam vuccati vinnanapaccaya namarupam. — 
" Nettippakarana," fol. ku' (Phayre MS.) : tattha ye pane' 
upadanakkhanda idam namarupam. tattha ye phassapancamaka 
dhammaf idam namam, yani pancindriyani rupani idam rupam. 
tadubhayam namarupam vinnanasampayuttam. 

How this explanation of Nama has arisen, is evident. The cate- 
gory of " form " or " corporeity " (rupa), like that of consciousness, 
is to be met as well in the combination " name and form together 
with consciousness," as in the system of the five khandhas " form, 

sensations, perceptions, conformations, consciousness." Now the 

* 

very natural conceit suggested itself to identify the two series of 

notions, which had actually arisen wholly independently of each 
other, having the members " form " and " consciousness " in com- 
mon, and thus the three khandhas "sensations, perceptions, 

* It appears to me we should read nS.mam. 

t I.€.y the five categories mentioned in the passage quoted from the Samm&- 
•(litthi Sutta, among which phassa is named, not indeed in the last, but in the 
fourth place ? 



4:i8 THE FOUR STAGES OF HOLINESS, 

conformations (Samkliadl = Cetana) '' of the one series remained 
over for the category of " name " in the other series. 

Cf . further " Milinda Pafiha," p. 49 ; Bumouf, " Intr." 501 seq. 



3. The Four Stages of Holiness. 

It is not mj intention here to expound in all its bearings the 
doctrine of the Cattaro MaggsL, on the whole rather unprofitable to 
the comprehension of Buddhist religious thought. I shall here 
only attempt to show how, in the statement of the psychological 
attributes which were attributed to the saints of the four stages, 
the earlier and later texts of the sacred Kanon differ from each 
other, in a manner which is characteristic of the history of the 
development of dogmatic literature. 

As far as I know, we possess, regarding the psychological attri- 
butes of saints of the four grades, no older expressions than those 
which occur in the " Mahaparinibbana Sutta," p. 16 seq., and 
conformably very often afterwards in the " Sutta Pi^aka." The 
four stages are there defined in the following way : 

1. tinn&m samyojananam parikkhaya sotapanno avinipatadhammo 
niyato sambodhiparayano. 

2. tinnam samyojananam paHkkhaya ragadosamohanam tanutta 
sakadagami sakid eva imam lokam agantva dukkhass' antam. ka- 
rissati. 

3. pancannam orambhagiyanam samyojananam parikkhaya opa- 
patiko tatthaparinibbayi anavattidhammo tasma loka. 

4. asavanam khaya anasavam cetovimuttim pannavimuttim 
di^^^eva dhamme sayam abhinngi sacchikatva upasamyajja vihasi. 

These definitions show evidently that there was a conventionally 
arranged series of Samyojanas and this lay at the bottom of the 
speculations upon progressive sanctifi cation. We can scarcely 
doubt that this series is the same which is uniformly given by 
commentators, and already occurs in the " Sutta Pi^aka " :* the 
five Orambhagiva Samyojana are Sakkayadif^^i, Nicikiccha, 

• *' SaTRjutta Nik&ya," vol. iii, fol. dhe. 



THE FOUR STAQE8 OF HOLINESS. 449' 

Silabbataparamasa, Blamaraga, Patiglia; the five Uddhainbh§.giva 
Samyojana : Ruparaga,'Aruparaga, Mana, Uddliacca, Avijja. 

It will be seen how quite nnsymmetrically couched the definitions 
given of the four stages are, with reference to this series. Some^ 
times three, sometimes five of the Samyojanas are overcome ; the 
categories of Biiga, Dosa, Moha, are introduced, of which only the 
first figures in the list of the Samyojanas ; in the second stage,, 
it is said, these three vices are almost overcome ; how it fares with 
them in the third stage is not stated ; but for the definition of the 
third grade recourse is again had exclusively to the Samyojana 
categories. Thus these formxdas give a veritable picture of the 
confusion which usually prevails in the long and abstruse series of 
ideas in ancient Buddhist dogmatic. 

It is interesting to observe how the later generation of dogma- 
tists, whose systematizing and harmonizing labours lie before us in 
the Abhidhamma Pi^aka, endeavoured to introduce some order and 
arrangement into this confusion. One of the Abhidhamma texts, 
the Puggalapaiinatti,* deals exclusively with the difEerent grades 
of beings in relation to the goal of holiness. Thus the four classes 
(by the side of which stand the corresponding subdivisions of 
the " phalasacchikiriyaya pa^panna," already, by-the-bye, frequently 
mentioned in the older Pi^akas, e.g., " CuUavagga," ix, 1, 4) are- 
defined as follows : 

1. yassa puggalassa tini samyojanani pahinani ayam vuccati 
puggalo sotapanno. 

2. yassa puggalassa kamaragabyapad^ tanubhiita ayam vuccati 
puggalo sakadagami. 



* Puggala (Sansk. pudgala), the subject bound in transmigration, or corre- 
spondingly the subject delivered therefrom, is synonymous with Satta, and 
Puggala-Satta stands against the pair of synonyms, Dhamnia-Sa7nkh&ra (vide 
supra, p. 250). According to the old strict teaching there are only Dhammas, and 
Sattas are spoken of only in accordance with ordinary modes of expression. 
Begarding the juxtaposition of Satta-puggala and Dhamma-Samkh&ra compare 
*♦ Milinda Panha," p. 317, where in characteristic style the topic is " atthisatta '*" 
and " atthidhamma ;" the Jin&lamk&ra in Bumouf, '* Intr." 606 ("Buddho 'ti ko 
satto v& samkharo v& "), and the northern Buddhist text, which is theis quoted,, 
p. 608 ('* Sa pudgalo na dharma/t"). 

29 



460 THE FOUR STAGES OF HOLINESS. 

3. yassa pnggalassa kdrmar4gab7&p4d& anayasesft pahin& ayam 
vnccati puggalo an^g&mi. 

4. yassa pnggalassa r^par&go ar^par&go mdiio uddhaccam ayijj& 
ADavases^ pahindr ayam vuccati puggalo araM. 

The system rests here exclnsively on the series of the ten 
Samyojanas.* Whatever in the older form of the doctrine referred 
to the Samyojanas, is here adopted ; the other categories which 
-were there dealt with, B4ga, Dosa, Moha, and the Asavas, have 
vanished from the new wording, or have been replaced by notions 
from the Samyojana series. Thus, when we regard the Samyojanas 
nnmlDered according to the order given above, the graded course of 
their conquest is the following : the Sot&panna has got rid of 1 — 3 ;. 
in the case of the SakadHgami and AnSgami, 4 and 5 also vanished, 
and that in such a way that in the Sak. they were reduced to a 
«mall measure, in the Anag. wholly annihilated ; the Araha finally 
has extirpated the last vices also, 6 — 10. 

Thus the doctrine of the four grades gives a picture of the way 
in which the confused series of notions contained in the suttas have 
been pondered by the theologians of the Abhidhamma, and their 
inconsistencies eliminated by them. 

* That the notion which was designated in the above-quoted form of the 
Samyojana list as Padgha is identical with that here named By&p&da, admits of 
no doubt. 



INDICES. 



1. INDEX TO PROPER NAMES. 



Acelaka 


66 


AciravatS (Bapti) 


95 note, 96 


Agni VaiQV&nara 10 


seq., 399 seq. 


Ajatasattu 


146, 162, 160 


Al&ra K&iama 105 


, 123, 420 seq. 


Ananda 116, 159 seq., 


197 seq., 201 


seq., 272 seq. 




Anftthapi72(2ika 


144 seq., 163 


Anga 


9,403 


Angulim^a 


243 note 


Arnni 


396 seq. 


Assaji 


134 


Bakkula 


445 


Beluva 


197, 445 


Benares 


124 seq. 


Bhaddiya 


416 


Bhailika 


119 


Bharata 


10, 406 seq. 


Bimbisara 133, 


143, 163, 419 


Buddhaghosa 


114 note 


Qakya, v, Sakya 




9an<iilya 


30, 31 note 


Cedi 


402 seq. 


Chabbaggiya 


335 seq. 


Devadatta 


160 seq. 


Dlghavu (Long-life) 


293 seq. 


Dighiti (Long.grief) 


293 seq. 


Gandh^a 


399,402 


Ganges 


8 


G&rgl 


31 


Gotama (Vedic sage) 


10 



Gotama (Name of Buddha) 95, 118^ 

125 seq., 411 seq., 413 seq. 
Ikshvaku (Okkaka) 98, 403, 412 

Isipatana 125 

Jlvaka 147, 163 

K&<?i 9, 31, 143, 393 note 

Kapilavatthu 91 seq., 99 seq., 105, 415 

seq. 
Elassapa 132 seq.. 

K&t/mka Upanishad 54 seq. 

Khema 278 seq., 439 seq. 

Eikata 402 

Koliya 412 seq. 

Eondanua 130 

Kosala 8, 9, 11, 98, 143, 393 note, 412 
Krivi 401 

Eun&la 296 seq. 

Kuru 10, 393 seq., 395 seq., 401, 410 
Kusin&ra 200 seq. 

Magadha 8, 9, 121, 136 seq., 143, 399^ 

402 
Mah&pajipati 93 note, 99 seq., 165 
Mahinda 75 note, 361 seq. 

Maitreyl 36 

Makkhali Gosdia 69 

Malla 202 seq., 399 note, 413 

M&lukya * 274 seq. 

Manu 393 seq. 

Mdthava 10 seq. 

Matsya 402 

Mkjk 73, 93 seq., 99, 417 



452 



INDICES. 



Metteyya 

Milinda 

Moggall&na 

Mucalinda 

Naciketas 

N&gasena 

Namuci 

N&taputta 

Niggantha 

Okk&ka, 17. Ikshv&ku 

Pajjota 

Pafic&la 

Pasenadi 

Pataliputta 

Pdva 

Praj&pati 

Pur&72a Kassapa 
P^u 
B^ula 
Bdjagaha 



142 note 

254 seq. 

134 seq., 156, 158 

118 

56 seq., 84 

88 note 

77 seq., 175 note 

66, 77, 175 



341 note 

10, 404, cf. Kuru 

98 note, 163, 278 seq., 413 

197 

78 

21 seq., 26, 29 seq. 

344 seq. 

70 

403, 410 

101, 103, 159 

133 seq., 143, 344 



Bapti, V, Aciravati 

Bohi^il 

Bu^ama 

Saccaka 

Saddnir& 

Sakya 



92, 96, 412 

402 

70 

10 seq., 398 

67, 93, 95 seq., 412 seq. 



Sarasvati 

Sdxiputta 

S&vatthi 

Siddhattha 

Sn'iSjaya (cf. Safijaya) 

Suddhodana 

Tapussa 

Tntsu 

Tiirva9a 

Upan 



10, 409 seq. 

134 seq., 158 

143 

95 

402 

99, 416 seq. 

119 

405 seq. 

404 seq. 

55 



Safijaya (cf. Snnjaya) 



136 seq. 



Uddaka B&maputtta 105, 123, 420 seq. 

Uddfilaka 40 (cf. Aruni) 

Upaii 156 note, 159 

UnivelA 106 seq., 132 

Va^a 393 note 

Vacchagotta 272 seq., 429, 438 seq. 

Vaja^ravas 55 

Vassak&ra 341 note 

Ves&H 76, 148, 197, 344 note 

Vessantara 302 seq. 

Videha 9, 11, 31, 31 note, 398 

Yidtdahha. 98 note 

Vis&kh& 167 seq. 
YAjnavalkya 13, 31 note, 32, 34 seq., 49, 

399 seq. 

Yama 55 seq. 

Yamaka 281 seq., 441 

Yasa • 131 



2. INDEX TO SUBJECTS. 



Abhidhamma 449 seq. 

Absolute 18, 27 note, 30 seq., 32 seq., 

53, 59, 64, 251, cf. Everlasting 
Abstraction, v. Concentration 
Admission to the Order 150 seq., 155 

note, 345, 379 
An^gami 319 note, 435, 448 

Analogy 189 

Atman (att&, the ego) 25 seq., 29 seq., 

45, 215, 271 seq., 439 
Avidya, cf. Ignorance 
Being 247 seq., 258 seq., 262 



Beneficence 144, 167 seq., 300 seq., 385 

seq. 
Bhava 236 

Bhikku, bhikkunS 161, 354 

Biography of Buddha 78 seq., 113 seq., 

138 seq., 411 seq. 
Brahma (neut.) 26 seq., 32 seq., 45 seq. 
Brahma (masc.) 26 note, 59, 117 note, 

121 seq. 
Brahmacarya 336 seq. 

Brahmanism 13 seq., 117, 148, 154, 157 

note, 170 seq. 



INDICES. 



453 



Buddha (word and meaning) 52, 67, 75, 

84, 95, 108, 322 seq. 
Buddhahood, attainment of the 85 seq., 

107 seq., 129, 424 seq. 
Caste 152 seq., 190, 249 note 

^atapatha BrShmana 10, 26, 29, 31, 33, 

48 seq., 52 
Causality 115, 120, 206, 223 seq., 243, 

248 seq., 262 
Ceylon (its importance to Buddhism) 

75, 78 note 
Chaos 40 

Chronology of Buddha's Life 81, 159 

note 
Church Government 341 seq. 

Clothing 359 seq. 

Concentration 50, 67, 106, 288, 313 seq., 

443 seq. 
Confession, the 370 seq., 378 note 

Conformations, cf. Samkh&ra 
Consciousness 227 seq., 253, 266 

Contact 232 

Contemplation, v. Concentration 
Conversions, histories of 131 seq., 147, 

183 seq. 
Councils 76, 343 seq. 

Cultus 369 seq. 

Death 45 seq., 55 seq., 267 cf. Trans- 
migration, Nirv&na 
Deliverance 7, 45 seq., 49 seq., 64, 130, 

205, 216, 235, 263 seq., 266 
Desire 48 seq., cf. Tanh& 

Dhamma 251, 270, 449 note. Dhamma 

and Vinaya 286 note 
Dhammapada 195, 219, 222, 236 seq., 

283 note, 284, 292 
Dialogues 31, 35 seq., 49, 189 seq., 254 

seq., 278 seq. 
Dinners 149^ 385 

Disciples 150 seq. The first disciples 

131 seq. ; their number 133 note, 

142 ; typical form 140, 158 ; social 

position 154 
Dualism 47, 51, 214 seq. 

Dwelling 360 seq. 

Ecstasy, v. Concentration 



Ego, V, Atman 

End of things 329 

Ethic 60, 61, 286 seq. 

Everlasting (cf. Absolute) 263, 269 seq., 

282 seq. 
Fables 193, 313 

Gardens 143 seq. 

Gods 18, 20 seq., 53, 59 seq., 246 

Gotra of the nobles 413 seq. 

Hell 161 note, 243 seq. 

Holiness 263 seq., 319 seq., cf. Deliver- 
ance, Nirvdna 
Ignorance 51 seq., 227 seq., 237 seq. 
Immigration of the Aryans 9, cl The 

First Excursus 
Improvisation, poetical 194 

Induction 189 

Invitation 374, 379 note 

Itinerancy, periods of 142 

Jaina (v. Niggantha, Index I) 

J^taka 193 note 

Karman 48, 242 seq. 

Khanda 213 seq., 255, 278 seq., 429 seq. 
Labour 366 

Lay-beHevers 119, 161 seq., 381 seq. 
Legends of Buddha 72 seq., 103 seq., 

108 seq. 
Legislation 334 

Love 292 

M&ra the Tempter 54 seq., 58 seq., 73, 

85 seq., 104, 116 seq., 192, 198, 258, 

266, 309 seq., 420, 426 
Material form (cf. NSmariipa) 213, 228 
Matter 40 

Maya 237 seq. 

Mendicant Life 14, 32, 61 seq., 149, 161, 

363 
Miracles 160 

Monasticism 33, 61 seq., v. Mendicant 

Life, Order, etc. 
Myth of Buddha 73 seq., 83 seq., 411 

seq. 
Ndmariipa (name and form) 41, 227 

seq., 445 seq. 
Name 352 note, 445 

Nidana 224 



454 



JNDICES. 



Nirv&na 116, 200 seq., 204 seq., 223 

seq., 263 seq., 267 seq., 329, 427 seq. 

Nothing, Nihilism 212, 238 seq., 267 

seq. 
Order, The 7, 119, 180 seq., 150 seq., 

161, 336 seq. 
Order, Law of the 831 seq. 

Order of the day 149 seq., 366 

Organized Fraternities 61 seq. 

PabbajjA, r. PravrajyA 
Paccekabuddha 120 note, 321 

P&U 75, 177 

Parables 191 seq., 275 

Parinibb&na, v. Nirvftna 
Path, the eight-fold 128, 211 

Patimokkha 332, 370 seq. 

Pav&rawa 374, 379 note 

Penances 67, 106 seq.. Ill, 175 seq. 
Pessimism 42 seq., 209 seq., 221 seq., 

cf. Suffering 
Poetry 193 

Poverty 354 seq., v. Mendicant Life 
PravrajyA 337 note, 347 seq., cf. Ad- 
mission to the Order 
Property 354 

Puggala 449 note 

Bainy season 141 seq. 

Belies, veneration for 375 seq. 

Betribution, Moral 48 seq., 242 seq., 258 
jR/gveda 9, 17 seq. Cf . The First Ei- 

cursus 
Sacrificial cultus 14, 20 seq., 46, 172 

seq. 
Sakad&gSmi 319, 448 seq. 

Samatm 67 

SaTnkhdra 225, 237, 241 seq., 251, 253, 

258, 270, 285, 449 note 
Sammasambuddha 120 note 

Sawiyojana 429, 448 seq. 

S&nkhya Philosophy 92 

Sanskrit 177 

Sayings, poetical 193 

Scepticism 69 



Sects 

Self-discipline 

Self-examination 

Sensation 

Senses, the six 

Sermon, the 

Sophistic 

SotApanna 

Soul 

Subject, cf. Atman 

Substance 



66 seq. 

805 

807 

232 

231 seq. 

125 seq. 

68 

319, 448 seq. 

252 seq., 270 

254 seq. 

24, 250, 253 



Suffering 42, 64, 128, 211, 249, 258 
Sun-hero, the 73 seq., 83 seq. 

Symbolic System, the 21 seq., 37 seq., 

46 
Systems of Ideas 180, 206 seq., 287 
Tales 193 

Tathdgata 126 note, 272, 278 seq., 332 

note, 441 
Temptation, story of the 115 seq. 

Tempter, v, Mdra 

Theravdda 75 

Transmigration 43 seq., 216, 229, 240 

seq., 261 
Tree of Knowledge 87 seq., 107, 10& 

note, 114, 376 
Trinity, Triad, the 6, 119, 339 

Truths, the four 128 seq., 211, 223, 

240, 286 seq. 
Upadana 427, 429 seq. 

Upadhi 427 seq. 

Upddisesa 427, 433 seq. 

Upasampada 347 seq., 349 

Uprightness 288, 290, 305 

Veda 9 seq., 63, 100, 171 seq., 391 seq., 

cf. jRfgveda 
Vinayapamokkha 341 note 

Vififiana, V. Consciousness 
Virtues 300 seq. 

Visions 111 

Wanderings, v. Itinerancy, periods of 
Withdrawal from the Order 352 seq. 
Women 164 seq., 377 seq» 



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